Small blisters of feet around the toes pictures
also known as acute vesiculobullous hand eczema, dyshidrotic eczema pompholyx
2014.01.29 19:13 itschvy also known as acute vesiculobullous hand eczema, dyshidrotic eczema pompholyx
Dyshidrosis is a skin condition that is characterized by small blisters on the hands or feet. It is an acute, chronic, or recurrent dermatosis of the fingers, palms, and soles, characterized by a sudden onset of many deep-seated pruritic, clear vesicles; later, scaling, fissures and lichenification occur. Recurrence is common and for many can be chronic.
2020.04.21 05:42 SheSmellsShoes SheSmellsShoes
A place for fetishists to share pictures and videos of women smelling their sneakers, heels, flats, etc. not a place for selling. 18+ only. Don't be rude. Self promotion is okay (posting OC to create visibility) but overt advertising or direct selling is not. twitter.com/SheSmellsShoes , tweet using #SheSmellsShoes, also on FetLife under the same name. Similar content can be found at SheSmellsSocks and SheSmellsSoles. Keep the posts on topic and the comments positive!
2020.05.16 08:06 pm_me_your_sole_pics Giantess Feet
Welcome to /GiantessFeet, a place to share pictures, videos, and stories of soles and toes of the giantess persuasion! This includes drawings, photo manips, forced perspective pictures, and more! // Giantess flair distinguishes posters who post their own content and have been verified by the subreddit! // Above all, let's maintain a positive, inclusive community. Please message a mod for any questions, concerns or suggestions.
2024.05.20 03:03 Fearless-Accident570 I [M21] am at my wits-end with my SOs [F20] messiness, justified?
I [M21] am at my wits-end with my SOs [F20] messiness, justified?
I [M21] am at my wits-end with my SOs [F20] messiness
One year relationship
In the beginning of us being together this wasn’t the case. When I would come over she would usually have a clean room and even if it was even a little bit messy she would apologize and/or not let me in until it was clean. Over time her cleanliness seems to erode (I guess) over time, especially after moving into her own place with her sister (who isn’t much better). It’s even started to feel like her being clean and tidy in the beginning was a mask and I’m seeing the real her now
Examples:
I remember one time her phone fell under the seat so I helped her reach it. I saw so much trash and food and filters and weed crumbs under her seats.
Ive expressed about this before and she changed temporarily. Eventually I gave up on it because it’s her car and I’m never in it for long (I don’t have my own car). Plus if it really bothers I just don’t have to be in it
I’m no neat freak but I was raised to be a good host but it seems she wasn’t(?) One time after we had sex I accidentally left a used condom laying around (nothing inside, just used). The next day she had a friend over unexpectedly. No biggie, she hung out her in her room for a bit while I watched tv in the living room. She told me after that her friend left and she saw it and pointed out the condom. I sincerely apologized to my girlfriend for it as I know it would be seen as gross and embarrassing. My girlfriend didn’t care, saying “this is my house”.
A few days ago (let’s say Wednesday) she told me she accidentally spilled her ashtray on the floor. Weekend comes and that spill is still on the floor. I laughed about it initially, thinking she would get to it. She never did, despite us eating and watching tv in the living room all night and it being as simple as sweeping it up. I even accidentally stepped on the pile of ash, filters, and sticks and expressed it made me upset. Still nothing done about it, instead just walks around it every time.
what am I doing about it?
You may be saying to yourself, “why not help out sometimes?” Well one, it’s her house so it’s not my responsibility. And two, I actually have. I’m someone who was raised to be a good houseguest as well. When I’m over her place I clean. Not only do I genuinely want to help sometimes but I try to take care of any mess I contribute to. I’ll wash dishes, take out trash from our food delivery bags, etc
You may also be asking, “well have you communicated this to her?” One, I feel this isn’t something a partner should have to bring up as it is her personal and basic well-being. I feel it’s weird to have to tell my partner about the importance of keeping her home/room clean. Plus if this basic thing is changed just for the sake of the relationship or because a partner brings it up, similar to her car, would be it be real change? Two, tactfully I mention it all the time: “the trash is getting full, you guys should do the dishes more often I don’t want y’all to get pests, I think you should throw out the food in that Tupperware in fridge being it’s been in there for a few months, etc
some understanding
She works too jobs, one at a daycare and another as an aba therapist. She was heavily abused as a child and endures emotional and financial abuse from her sister often. In my opinion, she has every reason to be burnt out and not have the energy to do even basic things sometimes. She does try to be better. Though she has back problems that deter her from being able to do the dishes in one go she has done it here and there. She has cleaned the bathroom, washed her clothes, and keeps bed bed clean. It sounds like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here, I know, but I’m saying these things to say ‘I don’t think she’s lazy. I think she’s dealing with more than she can handle externally and internally and it’s affecting how she lives. I see her efforts and I don’t want it to come across as me condescending’. (Therapy would be helpful imo but she lacks the time and desire, she says).
TL;DR: my so has become messier and messier over time. She deals with a lot so I can get not having the energy to always clean but it’s a little crazy at this point. She wants to improve a lot in her life so that leads me to be hopeful but I’ve heard you shouldn’t be with someone for their potential. Perhaps I’m taking this too seriously
What do you think?
submitted by Fearless-Accident570 to u/Fearless-Accident570 [link] [comments]
I [M21] am at my wits-end with my SOs [F20] messiness
One year relationship
In the beginning of us being together this wasn’t the case. When I would come over she would usually have a clean room and even if it was even a little bit messy she would apologize and/or not let me in until it was clean. Over time her cleanliness seems to erode (I guess) over time, especially after moving into her own place with her sister (who isn’t much better). It’s even started to feel like her being clean and tidy in the beginning was a mask and I’m seeing the real her now
Examples:
- Her car
I remember one time her phone fell under the seat so I helped her reach it. I saw so much trash and food and filters and weed crumbs under her seats.
Ive expressed about this before and she changed temporarily. Eventually I gave up on it because it’s her car and I’m never in it for long (I don’t have my own car). Plus if it really bothers I just don’t have to be in it
- her room
I’m no neat freak but I was raised to be a good host but it seems she wasn’t(?) One time after we had sex I accidentally left a used condom laying around (nothing inside, just used). The next day she had a friend over unexpectedly. No biggie, she hung out her in her room for a bit while I watched tv in the living room. She told me after that her friend left and she saw it and pointed out the condom. I sincerely apologized to my girlfriend for it as I know it would be seen as gross and embarrassing. My girlfriend didn’t care, saying “this is my house”.
A few days ago (let’s say Wednesday) she told me she accidentally spilled her ashtray on the floor. Weekend comes and that spill is still on the floor. I laughed about it initially, thinking she would get to it. She never did, despite us eating and watching tv in the living room all night and it being as simple as sweeping it up. I even accidentally stepped on the pile of ash, filters, and sticks and expressed it made me upset. Still nothing done about it, instead just walks around it every time.
what am I doing about it?
You may be saying to yourself, “why not help out sometimes?” Well one, it’s her house so it’s not my responsibility. And two, I actually have. I’m someone who was raised to be a good houseguest as well. When I’m over her place I clean. Not only do I genuinely want to help sometimes but I try to take care of any mess I contribute to. I’ll wash dishes, take out trash from our food delivery bags, etc
You may also be asking, “well have you communicated this to her?” One, I feel this isn’t something a partner should have to bring up as it is her personal and basic well-being. I feel it’s weird to have to tell my partner about the importance of keeping her home/room clean. Plus if this basic thing is changed just for the sake of the relationship or because a partner brings it up, similar to her car, would be it be real change? Two, tactfully I mention it all the time: “the trash is getting full, you guys should do the dishes more often I don’t want y’all to get pests, I think you should throw out the food in that Tupperware in fridge being it’s been in there for a few months, etc
some understanding
She works too jobs, one at a daycare and another as an aba therapist. She was heavily abused as a child and endures emotional and financial abuse from her sister often. In my opinion, she has every reason to be burnt out and not have the energy to do even basic things sometimes. She does try to be better. Though she has back problems that deter her from being able to do the dishes in one go she has done it here and there. She has cleaned the bathroom, washed her clothes, and keeps bed bed clean. It sounds like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here, I know, but I’m saying these things to say ‘I don’t think she’s lazy. I think she’s dealing with more than she can handle externally and internally and it’s affecting how she lives. I see her efforts and I don’t want it to come across as me condescending’. (Therapy would be helpful imo but she lacks the time and desire, she says).
TL;DR: my so has become messier and messier over time. She deals with a lot so I can get not having the energy to always clean but it’s a little crazy at this point. She wants to improve a lot in her life so that leads me to be hopeful but I’ve heard you shouldn’t be with someone for their potential. Perhaps I’m taking this too seriously
What do you think?
2024.05.20 02:59 TheOneTrueAnimeGod Sionia Chapter 14
Sionia
Chapter 14
Map First Previous
“Lord Wyatt, you are needed” Called Lars that shook me out of my fascinating reading about dragon neuts.
“Yes.” I said as I pulled back the curtain.
“The city guard requests to speak with you. They are restricting entrance to Avalon given the latest attack by Mardor at Black Gate of Rowan.” Lars explained with a salute and chest bump
With a sigh, I handed my book to Gus and exited the carriage and was very impressed with the massive three story gatehouse and huge stone block readouts connected on each side. I was met by a forty something looking man of average build with black hair and dark eyes flanked by six fully fitted out soldiers.
“I am Rhys Redith captain of the guard here in Avalon. You must be Count Ryan Wyatt.” Rhys introduced himself with the question.
“Yes, I am Ryan Wyatt.” I responded with a frown and knotted brow.
“We have been expecting your arrival. The king has ordered us to assist you and provide hospitality. I am to escort you to the fortress and the rest of your party to Duggan's inn.” Said Rhys with a salute and formal bow.
“That will not do! I have several wards under my care which several are nobility.” I objected to the plan given.
“I was not aware. I will of course take you to the fortress where Lady Ludmilla will address your concerns.” Replied Rhys with a salute and bow then motioned for me to follow.
“Follow him, Jace .” I said to my new driver and climbed into the carriage.
The bridge over the north side of the Paradise River to the island of Avalon was very long at around a quarter mile or so. The readouts of the gatehouse extended a good ways into the river which had several firing positions. I suspected that the river rose and fell with a possible rainy and dry season which was why the readouts could prevent an army from getting behind the gatehouse or access to the bridge from land. The gatehouse was flush with the city walls and protruded into the river was equally as impressive with a descent sized recessed portico as draw bridge porch extension.
Thinking back to my travels through Europe, I decided Avalon looked like the city of East Looe, Cornwall in England but not as topographically elevated and with more renaissance style architecture than back on earth. The Roman style arched bridge was very much what we just rode across. The fortress of Avalon itself was at the highest point which was of to the left on the far east side of the island and most up stream point on the islands..
The Fortress keep was decent but still half the size of Duke Boasag's Buanna. I realized that the reason for putting my servants at an inn was because of the lack of space. However, I was determined to stay with my wards no matter the violation of etiquette it might cause. As my carriage pulled up to the entrance with the fortress that had both iron gates and metal reinforced wooden doors that were a good six feet wide and twelve feet tall each. These doors were set into no less than a three foot thick wall,
Passing through the gate was a small bricked paved courtyard that about about forty to fifty feet wide in a more or less oval shape. I saw a host of servants and two well dressed ladies waiting at the main doors to the fortress's central keep.
“Lord Wyatt, welcome to Avalon. I am Viscountess Ludmilla Skafhoggr and this is my mother Baroness Grogda Wode.” Stated a quiet plump pretty faced brown haired woman in a gaudy yellow with purple accented dress with unicorns all over it and a matching unicorn hat whose horn protruded a good foot from her forehead
“Yes, it is a very deep pleasure to meet you as well” Stated Lady Grogda a good looking woman who seemed to be in her mid to late thirties with black hair and unusual olive colored eyes. Her lite brown dress was quiet plain compared to her daughter's which was kind of comical in their contrast.
“The pleasure is mine for sure in meeting you ladies.” I said pouring it on a bit thick with a formal bow and sweep of my arm.
“I do not understand. Why are all your people with you?” Lady Ludmilla asked looking toward Captain Rhys but speaking to me.
“I have many wards under my protection. Thus, it is impossible to leave them alone without my presence as there are many who would try and take advantage of helpless young girls.” I stated but that failed miserably when Frey and the other three Asgardians approached fully armed with their swords.
“I would hardly call them helpless!” Spat Lady Grogda with a bit of contempt as the Asgardians were better looking than her.
“Despite appearances, they need my protection. After all, I am their guardian as I freed them from captivity.” I responded with a bit of admonishment in my voice.
“Yes, we have heard the tale. You are quiet the knight in shinning armor.” Lady Ludmilla said with obvious sarcasm.
“It is what it is. The wards will be with me wherever I am. If that is at an inn or camping on the side of the road, so bit it.” I stated with irritation.
“Do not be silly. We can host your wards and personal attendant. However, we must insist that the rest stay in the inn over there.” Lady Ludmilla said pointing to a three story building that was about fifty yards away.
“That is closer than expected. However, I accept. My people can stay at the inn while you host me and my wards.” I stated with another formal bow.
“Good, now come and we will see to your comfort.” Lady Ludmilla said with a bit of a laugh with Lady Grogda giving a small laugh and a wicked grin.
I immediately turned to Lars, Razor and Meowth and ordered that they maintain a watch on the carts and carriage around the clock as I did not want any lapse where someone would try to take advantage. I called to the wolf kin brothers to continue to protect the girls inside the fortress. Pointing to Lars, I told him to take our prisoner Andros to the adventure's guild office and turn him over that he was caught trying to steal from me. Let them know I will see them on morrow to see if Andros was telling the truth or just lying. Turning with a smile and motioned to Freya and the girls to follow me with Gus right behind me.
The inside of the fortress was decently furnished though it had more of the appearance of a military outpost than a holding of wealth as it looked quiet spartan. I was led to an upper chamber where Lady Grogda had already ordered a bath filled by the time we had arrived.
“I will see to you personally” Lady Grogda stated with that same wicked grin again.
I suddenly felt as though I was a piece of meat put on display before a hungry wolf. I steeled myself to not recoil as I just felt off with this lady.
“See to your master's baggage.” Lady Grogda ordered Gus who was surprised by the command.
Gus gave me a slight shaking of his head and left the chamber. Lady Grogda then proceeded to strip me with efficiency. Once I was naked, she suddenly took her time looking at my nakedness. She even traced my scars on my back with a click of her tongue. Walking over to the tub, I climbed in and sat down.
“Spoil sport” Said Lady Grogda as she grabbed a wash cloth.
“Do not get my wounds wet.” I said warning Lady Groda of what the doctor had told me.
“Why? Your wound is almost well healed. The stitches can be pulled out except here” Stated Grogda and tapped me on my left shoulder blade.
“I have been using a special salve from the high elves. I did not realize it was healing that fast. However, I was warned that getting my wound wet would effect my healing.” I repeated what Doctor Zalzwarth told me.
“Very well.” Groda conceded.
Lady Grogda began washing me where she was absolutely taking her time. It was obvious that she was deliberately feeling me up for her own pleasure. When she grasped my manhood. I stood up and said, “The water is cold and I am tired and hungry!”
“Humph” Pouted Lady Grogda her displeasure but began to rinse me.
Just as I was stepping out of the tub, Gus entered slightly out of breath as he had run to get my clothes with Lukas my footman helping. I sighed with relief as Gus helped me don my dressing gown.
“Old Maude will be here momentarily to apply your salve.” Gus said with a salute.
“Very good.” I replied to Gus then turned to Lady Grogda and said, “I was told you are a Dowager Baroness. Is that not so?” I blatantly asked appearing as innocent as I could.
“I will see you at the dinner bell hour.” Lady Groda said with a sort of half wave salute and stormed out of the chamber in a huff.
“Thank you, Gus. I actually thought I would have to literally fight to save my personal honor.” I remarked with a laugh.
“It was my pleasure, Lord Wyatt.” Gus responded and joined me in laughing.
Old Maude came about twenty minutes later and applied my salve and chatted about how excited she was to be in Avalon and wanting to visit one of the apothecary shops. I gave her permission but have one of the guards accompany her.
About an hour later and I was fully shaven and dressed, I heard a large bell ringing from a bell tower not far away from my chamber. With that, I headed down to the great hall that was just off the main entrance way. I was met by Lady Ludmilla who escorted me to Viscount Skafhoggr chair where she seated herself to my left. Lady Grogda appeared wearing a new pink dress and seated herself to my right. The one missing was the Viscount.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr?” I asked Lady Ludmilla with a raised eyebrow.
“He is meeting with one of the military commanders. I believe they are deciding on how large a levy they must raise to battle the bastards of Mardor.” Replied Lady Ludmilla as she clapped her hands for servants to begin serving the evening meal.
Four exhausting hours later, I was back in my chamber with my nerves completely shot. The constant fawning and mindless chatter from Lady Ludmilla as well as the constant groping from Lady Grogda under the table had stained me to the max. I was ready for bed and was glad to sink into the lavender scented sheets. Gus grabbed a thin pallet and two blankets. Blowing out the candles he stepped into the hallway closing the door behind him. He would outside my door as custom demands while traveling.
A little over a half an hour later after Gus left, the door opened and closed quickly. I could not see in the darkness but relaxed when Freya spoke softly and slipped into bed with me. Freya did her magic on me as she mounted me taking me to new heights of pleasure. I quickly forgot all about the overly eager pursuit of the Dowager Baroness as I shared the pleasures of being with Freya. After we had sated ourselves completely, we slept peacefully in a loving embrace.
The morning came with a knock on my door that woke both Freya and I. I moaned but Freya nudged me on the chin.
“Time to wake you lazy bones.” Freya said with a laugh.
“I am not a morning person.” I said with a groan.
“Don't I know it! You were quiet the beast were you not?” Freya teased then laughed at me.
The knock on the door was more instant as I rose and put on my dressing gown. Opening the door slightly was Gus and the Dowager Baroness.
“It is early, what is it?” I asked.
“We have prepared a very special meal for you this morning.” Said Lady Grogda with a frown while she tried to look around me into the chamber.
“I see. Well, give me some time to properly dress and I will be down shortly.” I stated and continued to Gus “Have Lukas bring my shaving kit.”
“Right away, Lord Wyatt.” Gus said as he motioned down the hall where I assumed Lukas was.
About forty five minutes later and having snuck Freya out of my chamber, I was fully shaved and dressed in my dark red outfit and black beret hat that actually looked really good on me. Upon entering the great hall, I saw Lady Ludmilla seated. Lady Grogda taking me by the arm led me again to the Viscount's chair where she seated herself next to me.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr, Lady Ludmilla?” I asked her directly.
Lady Ludmilla was quiet for a moment then said, “I guess he is sleeping. The meetings with the military commanders drag on for hours and hours. I hardly ever see him these days.” Lady Ludmilla said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Is that so. Very well as it can not be helped. Please send my regards to Lord Skafhoggr for his hospitality. I was informed that the king would have a messages for me that Lord Skafhoggr was to give me. Could you ask Lord Skafhoggr for them?” I asked as I suspected something was just not right.
“Oh. Ah. I will of course ask my Lord Vincent for the king's message once morning meal is finished.” Lady Ludmilla said and looked discombobulated.
“I see. Please do so. The king ordered me to arrive in Camelot immediately. I can not dally and spend extra time as I normally would do. I hope you understand.” I said making extra emphasis on the king's order part.
“Yes. What the king commands we all must obey.” Lady Ludmillas said sourly but not looking at me.
Lady Ludmilla then clapped her hands and the servants brought in the morning meal. What surprised me was my meal was different from everyone else. Looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda something in the back on my head screamed warning warning.
The silver plate before me was a type of stew with a strong overpowering spice scent. I frowned and began to think hard and fast.
“This is a specialty from the High Valley region. I hope you like it.” Lady Grogda said with no expression at all.
My alarm bells went off even stronger this time. A footman came over to fill my cup which I deliberately knocked over and profusely apologized for my clumsiness.
“You know, I am from the High Valley region too. I have never been a fan of overly spiced foods. Lets see how spicy it is.” I stated and took a scoop with a spoon and handed it to the footman to taste.
The footman was surprised but more than happy to taste the food as it was obvious that food for the staff was very plain and simple.
“You should not do that! It is not right!” Lady Grogda said as she stood up showing more alarm than outrage.
The footman had already consumed the sample where he at first looked like he liked it. However, he suddenly started to choke as his face turned bright red and falling to his knees. Lady Ludmilla stood up in horror as the footman was gagging begging for water. I handed him my silver chalice with what I assumed was apple cider where he chugged it down then begged for more.
Finally, after three more cups of water given by another footman, first footman just lay on his back almost in a stupor. It was as if his mind was blank.
“What is this?” I asked as I pointed to my meal looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda.
“I do not know!” Said Lady Ludmilla looking at her mother with a strange look.
“Do not give me that! What did you do?” I demanded with a my voiced raised and now pointing my finger at them.
“It was a love potion. It was to make you like me.” Said Lady Grogda meekly and looking sheepishly at the ground.
“Seriously! That was more than a simple love potion!” I yelled my outrage.
“I swear that is all it was. I had to hide its not so pleasant taste with spice.” Lady Grogda stated her defense but still not able to look me in the eye.
“Lady Ludmilla, I must now ask that you bring me the king's message as I am now leaving Avalon.” I commanded with rage in my countenance.
Lady Ludmilla fled the great hall without replying. Lady Grogda just sat down with her head down looking at the floor saying nothing.
With exasperation, I called out to my people. “House of Wyatt, Ladies and girls we are leaving! Quickly gather your things and be out front within a little span!”
With that, I stormed out of the great hall to the shock of all present. Up in the guest chamber, I changed clothes into my bluejeans, a blue shirt and a tan leather vest. Pulling on my boots and strapping on my weapons belt, I looked over seeing Gus and Lukas already packed up my discarded clothing and was ready to leave as they were staying clear of my angry outbursts.
Down at the carts, I ordered my guards to ready themselves to leave. I sent Lukas to call all the servants in the inn to be ready to leave immediately. Razor and Meowth jumped down from their perch on the first two carriages with questioning looks.
“They tried to poison me! Can you believe it?” I said angrily as I swept my arm to point at the fortress.
“Meow Lord Wyatt, that is clawful. Do you want meow to use them like a scratching post?” Asked Meowth as her tail went straight in what I assumed was either surprise or anger.
Razor just gave a low grumbling growl with teeth bared as he looked at the fortress.
Forty minutes later as my people were loading up, Lady Ludmilla approached with her head down.
“I am sorry Lord Wyatt. It seems you do not have any messages from the king.” Lady Ludmilla said never once looking me in the eye.
“I see. Send a message to the king that I left Avalon today and as commanded traveling as quickly as I can. The king is expecting my update so make sure it is properly sent!” I said with a warning.
I ordered a florse saddled for I needed fresh air as I was still furious. I actually led our people out and toward the main north south road which Nick panicked a bit and settled with riding next to me. As we approached the main crossroads of the city, I saw a large dinning hall and ordered a halt for all of our people to have breakfast. The meal consisted of roasted mutton, eggs, apple pancakes and apple jam. They also had fresh chilled milk and apple cider which really went well with the sweet dishes. Our group apparently cleaned them out and they had to turn away a few customers until mid day.
After breakfast, I went to the adventurer's guild that was a few buildings to the south. It was a four story building of decent size. I allowed Old Maude with a one of the house guards to go to the apothecary shop across the road along with the two Alphardian servants Aura and Sylvia. Inside the adventurer's guild, I asked for Marine as instructed. It was then I learned that Marine was Zack Talley's girl where they were to marry soon as she proudly let me know her good news.
“Zack said to tell you this is a level one escort. Whatever that means.” I repeated what Zack had told me to say.
“Thank you. It simply means Zack thinks there would be no problems and just being present is enough to discourage any potential thieves. The total is two hundred fifty denari for basic escort with an A ranked adventurer.” Marine said with a smile
After paying the fee for the job request, I asked Marine to speak to someone about Andros that was brought in by man guard Lars.
“I am Supervisor Etan Borg and assistant to Guild Master Henry Stewart. It is a pleasure to be at your service Count Wyatt..” Stated Etan with a salute and bow.
“Pleasure is mine.” I replied with a salute and nod of my head.
“We have investigated Andros. His party the Finders of Avalon specialize in retrieving lost items or stolen goods from thieves. It appears his party was specifically requested to recover a lost ventu volpis. We do not have any more details for the job other than this.” Etan stated as he read from a page in his hand.
“Who hired them to steal from me? Make no mistake, they were hired to steal from me!” I said as I was showing my anger and frustration.
“Normally, we would not disclose who posted job requests to those not apart of the contract. However, given the circumstances, I was instructed to tell you it was Viscountess Lady Ludmilla. It seems she contracted and paid a merchant from Xanadu for a ventu volpis. It is our understanding that merchant was placed on a Quenya trade ship where he will go on trial for his many crimes in Svarta. The Finders of Avalon should not have tried to take your ventu volpis. Nor should they have taken on the job given the crimes of the merchant without more information.” Etan explained what the guild knew.
“What will happen to Andros?” I asked frankly.
“The Guild Master will hold a hearing with S and an A ranked members who will advise on the issues. I expect he will be found guilty but will escape the ten year punishment. More like one to two years of labor for the guild doing low ranked jobs that no one wants while being supervised by myself or a C ranked or higher adventurer. His pay will be one third of normal with the rest going to repay the guild or costs associated with his lapse in judgment.” Etan replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I see. The thing that irks me is they attacked my people and wounded one of my guards with a slinger's stone.” I explained my outrage.
“I was not aware of this fact. Master Stewart will compensate you as the law requires. Unfortunately, Master Stewart left for Camelot for meeting with the war counsel on Astria's response to the Empire's latest invasion. I will send a filoxis to let Master Stewart know that there was injury, offense and honor requirements. I understand you will be traveling to Camelot and am certain Master Stewart will seek you out to give you a formal apology and see you are properly compensated.” Etan stated with a salute and bow.
“Good enough. Let me know the outcome of the hearing for Andros. I do not like loose ends and a potential enemy looking for revenge.” I said mater of factually.
“Understood. I will relay your concerns to Master Stewart. Etan replied with another salute and bow.
Leaving the adventure's guild, I decided to visit the tradesman's guild and merchant's storefront while Old Maude was still busy across the street. The girls came with me as they had been requesting things like combs, brushes and scented oils plus a few other special feminine items they needed.
Once all the girls got what they were needing and getting those items stowed with their baggage, Old Maude came back with a small crate filled with items to make medicines. While the baggage was being loaded and sorted, I went to see the information broker's desk and inquired about Chamberlain Robert Duffy. I paid the requested fee of one erythro given his status in the city. I was shown a file which listed the qualities, character and known habits of Robert. There was a section about vices and food preferences. The only vice was seeing a woman who was a widow listed as a paid mistress. Basically, Robert was a straight as an arrow honorable man. I smiled as the report made me feel better about who I was helping.
Finally, with everyone loaded up, we headed out of the city of Avalon over the southern main bridge and gate that was just like the north one but slightly longer with a guard tower protected draw bridge section to let ships pass. After about two hours, I had calmed down enough that I rode in the carriage as was expected of a person of rank. I just looked out seeing nothing but the vast wheat fields of the Capital Region realizing how lucky I had been to escape the evils of the ladies of Fortress Avalon.
submitted by TheOneTrueAnimeGod to HFY [link] [comments]
Chapter 14
Map First Previous
“Lord Wyatt, you are needed” Called Lars that shook me out of my fascinating reading about dragon neuts.
“Yes.” I said as I pulled back the curtain.
“The city guard requests to speak with you. They are restricting entrance to Avalon given the latest attack by Mardor at Black Gate of Rowan.” Lars explained with a salute and chest bump
With a sigh, I handed my book to Gus and exited the carriage and was very impressed with the massive three story gatehouse and huge stone block readouts connected on each side. I was met by a forty something looking man of average build with black hair and dark eyes flanked by six fully fitted out soldiers.
“I am Rhys Redith captain of the guard here in Avalon. You must be Count Ryan Wyatt.” Rhys introduced himself with the question.
“Yes, I am Ryan Wyatt.” I responded with a frown and knotted brow.
“We have been expecting your arrival. The king has ordered us to assist you and provide hospitality. I am to escort you to the fortress and the rest of your party to Duggan's inn.” Said Rhys with a salute and formal bow.
“That will not do! I have several wards under my care which several are nobility.” I objected to the plan given.
“I was not aware. I will of course take you to the fortress where Lady Ludmilla will address your concerns.” Replied Rhys with a salute and bow then motioned for me to follow.
“Follow him, Jace .” I said to my new driver and climbed into the carriage.
The bridge over the north side of the Paradise River to the island of Avalon was very long at around a quarter mile or so. The readouts of the gatehouse extended a good ways into the river which had several firing positions. I suspected that the river rose and fell with a possible rainy and dry season which was why the readouts could prevent an army from getting behind the gatehouse or access to the bridge from land. The gatehouse was flush with the city walls and protruded into the river was equally as impressive with a descent sized recessed portico as draw bridge porch extension.
Thinking back to my travels through Europe, I decided Avalon looked like the city of East Looe, Cornwall in England but not as topographically elevated and with more renaissance style architecture than back on earth. The Roman style arched bridge was very much what we just rode across. The fortress of Avalon itself was at the highest point which was of to the left on the far east side of the island and most up stream point on the islands..
The Fortress keep was decent but still half the size of Duke Boasag's Buanna. I realized that the reason for putting my servants at an inn was because of the lack of space. However, I was determined to stay with my wards no matter the violation of etiquette it might cause. As my carriage pulled up to the entrance with the fortress that had both iron gates and metal reinforced wooden doors that were a good six feet wide and twelve feet tall each. These doors were set into no less than a three foot thick wall,
Passing through the gate was a small bricked paved courtyard that about about forty to fifty feet wide in a more or less oval shape. I saw a host of servants and two well dressed ladies waiting at the main doors to the fortress's central keep.
“Lord Wyatt, welcome to Avalon. I am Viscountess Ludmilla Skafhoggr and this is my mother Baroness Grogda Wode.” Stated a quiet plump pretty faced brown haired woman in a gaudy yellow with purple accented dress with unicorns all over it and a matching unicorn hat whose horn protruded a good foot from her forehead
“Yes, it is a very deep pleasure to meet you as well” Stated Lady Grogda a good looking woman who seemed to be in her mid to late thirties with black hair and unusual olive colored eyes. Her lite brown dress was quiet plain compared to her daughter's which was kind of comical in their contrast.
“The pleasure is mine for sure in meeting you ladies.” I said pouring it on a bit thick with a formal bow and sweep of my arm.
“I do not understand. Why are all your people with you?” Lady Ludmilla asked looking toward Captain Rhys but speaking to me.
“I have many wards under my protection. Thus, it is impossible to leave them alone without my presence as there are many who would try and take advantage of helpless young girls.” I stated but that failed miserably when Frey and the other three Asgardians approached fully armed with their swords.
“I would hardly call them helpless!” Spat Lady Grogda with a bit of contempt as the Asgardians were better looking than her.
“Despite appearances, they need my protection. After all, I am their guardian as I freed them from captivity.” I responded with a bit of admonishment in my voice.
“Yes, we have heard the tale. You are quiet the knight in shinning armor.” Lady Ludmilla said with obvious sarcasm.
“It is what it is. The wards will be with me wherever I am. If that is at an inn or camping on the side of the road, so bit it.” I stated with irritation.
“Do not be silly. We can host your wards and personal attendant. However, we must insist that the rest stay in the inn over there.” Lady Ludmilla said pointing to a three story building that was about fifty yards away.
“That is closer than expected. However, I accept. My people can stay at the inn while you host me and my wards.” I stated with another formal bow.
“Good, now come and we will see to your comfort.” Lady Ludmilla said with a bit of a laugh with Lady Grogda giving a small laugh and a wicked grin.
I immediately turned to Lars, Razor and Meowth and ordered that they maintain a watch on the carts and carriage around the clock as I did not want any lapse where someone would try to take advantage. I called to the wolf kin brothers to continue to protect the girls inside the fortress. Pointing to Lars, I told him to take our prisoner Andros to the adventure's guild office and turn him over that he was caught trying to steal from me. Let them know I will see them on morrow to see if Andros was telling the truth or just lying. Turning with a smile and motioned to Freya and the girls to follow me with Gus right behind me.
The inside of the fortress was decently furnished though it had more of the appearance of a military outpost than a holding of wealth as it looked quiet spartan. I was led to an upper chamber where Lady Grogda had already ordered a bath filled by the time we had arrived.
“I will see to you personally” Lady Grogda stated with that same wicked grin again.
I suddenly felt as though I was a piece of meat put on display before a hungry wolf. I steeled myself to not recoil as I just felt off with this lady.
“See to your master's baggage.” Lady Grogda ordered Gus who was surprised by the command.
Gus gave me a slight shaking of his head and left the chamber. Lady Grogda then proceeded to strip me with efficiency. Once I was naked, she suddenly took her time looking at my nakedness. She even traced my scars on my back with a click of her tongue. Walking over to the tub, I climbed in and sat down.
“Spoil sport” Said Lady Grogda as she grabbed a wash cloth.
“Do not get my wounds wet.” I said warning Lady Groda of what the doctor had told me.
“Why? Your wound is almost well healed. The stitches can be pulled out except here” Stated Grogda and tapped me on my left shoulder blade.
“I have been using a special salve from the high elves. I did not realize it was healing that fast. However, I was warned that getting my wound wet would effect my healing.” I repeated what Doctor Zalzwarth told me.
“Very well.” Groda conceded.
Lady Grogda began washing me where she was absolutely taking her time. It was obvious that she was deliberately feeling me up for her own pleasure. When she grasped my manhood. I stood up and said, “The water is cold and I am tired and hungry!”
“Humph” Pouted Lady Grogda her displeasure but began to rinse me.
Just as I was stepping out of the tub, Gus entered slightly out of breath as he had run to get my clothes with Lukas my footman helping. I sighed with relief as Gus helped me don my dressing gown.
“Old Maude will be here momentarily to apply your salve.” Gus said with a salute.
“Very good.” I replied to Gus then turned to Lady Grogda and said, “I was told you are a Dowager Baroness. Is that not so?” I blatantly asked appearing as innocent as I could.
“I will see you at the dinner bell hour.” Lady Groda said with a sort of half wave salute and stormed out of the chamber in a huff.
“Thank you, Gus. I actually thought I would have to literally fight to save my personal honor.” I remarked with a laugh.
“It was my pleasure, Lord Wyatt.” Gus responded and joined me in laughing.
Old Maude came about twenty minutes later and applied my salve and chatted about how excited she was to be in Avalon and wanting to visit one of the apothecary shops. I gave her permission but have one of the guards accompany her.
About an hour later and I was fully shaven and dressed, I heard a large bell ringing from a bell tower not far away from my chamber. With that, I headed down to the great hall that was just off the main entrance way. I was met by Lady Ludmilla who escorted me to Viscount Skafhoggr chair where she seated herself to my left. Lady Grogda appeared wearing a new pink dress and seated herself to my right. The one missing was the Viscount.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr?” I asked Lady Ludmilla with a raised eyebrow.
“He is meeting with one of the military commanders. I believe they are deciding on how large a levy they must raise to battle the bastards of Mardor.” Replied Lady Ludmilla as she clapped her hands for servants to begin serving the evening meal.
Four exhausting hours later, I was back in my chamber with my nerves completely shot. The constant fawning and mindless chatter from Lady Ludmilla as well as the constant groping from Lady Grogda under the table had stained me to the max. I was ready for bed and was glad to sink into the lavender scented sheets. Gus grabbed a thin pallet and two blankets. Blowing out the candles he stepped into the hallway closing the door behind him. He would outside my door as custom demands while traveling.
A little over a half an hour later after Gus left, the door opened and closed quickly. I could not see in the darkness but relaxed when Freya spoke softly and slipped into bed with me. Freya did her magic on me as she mounted me taking me to new heights of pleasure. I quickly forgot all about the overly eager pursuit of the Dowager Baroness as I shared the pleasures of being with Freya. After we had sated ourselves completely, we slept peacefully in a loving embrace.
The morning came with a knock on my door that woke both Freya and I. I moaned but Freya nudged me on the chin.
“Time to wake you lazy bones.” Freya said with a laugh.
“I am not a morning person.” I said with a groan.
“Don't I know it! You were quiet the beast were you not?” Freya teased then laughed at me.
The knock on the door was more instant as I rose and put on my dressing gown. Opening the door slightly was Gus and the Dowager Baroness.
“It is early, what is it?” I asked.
“We have prepared a very special meal for you this morning.” Said Lady Grogda with a frown while she tried to look around me into the chamber.
“I see. Well, give me some time to properly dress and I will be down shortly.” I stated and continued to Gus “Have Lukas bring my shaving kit.”
“Right away, Lord Wyatt.” Gus said as he motioned down the hall where I assumed Lukas was.
About forty five minutes later and having snuck Freya out of my chamber, I was fully shaved and dressed in my dark red outfit and black beret hat that actually looked really good on me. Upon entering the great hall, I saw Lady Ludmilla seated. Lady Grogda taking me by the arm led me again to the Viscount's chair where she seated herself next to me.
“Where is Lord Skafhoggr, Lady Ludmilla?” I asked her directly.
Lady Ludmilla was quiet for a moment then said, “I guess he is sleeping. The meetings with the military commanders drag on for hours and hours. I hardly ever see him these days.” Lady Ludmilla said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Is that so. Very well as it can not be helped. Please send my regards to Lord Skafhoggr for his hospitality. I was informed that the king would have a messages for me that Lord Skafhoggr was to give me. Could you ask Lord Skafhoggr for them?” I asked as I suspected something was just not right.
“Oh. Ah. I will of course ask my Lord Vincent for the king's message once morning meal is finished.” Lady Ludmilla said and looked discombobulated.
“I see. Please do so. The king ordered me to arrive in Camelot immediately. I can not dally and spend extra time as I normally would do. I hope you understand.” I said making extra emphasis on the king's order part.
“Yes. What the king commands we all must obey.” Lady Ludmillas said sourly but not looking at me.
Lady Ludmilla then clapped her hands and the servants brought in the morning meal. What surprised me was my meal was different from everyone else. Looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda something in the back on my head screamed warning warning.
The silver plate before me was a type of stew with a strong overpowering spice scent. I frowned and began to think hard and fast.
“This is a specialty from the High Valley region. I hope you like it.” Lady Grogda said with no expression at all.
My alarm bells went off even stronger this time. A footman came over to fill my cup which I deliberately knocked over and profusely apologized for my clumsiness.
“You know, I am from the High Valley region too. I have never been a fan of overly spiced foods. Lets see how spicy it is.” I stated and took a scoop with a spoon and handed it to the footman to taste.
The footman was surprised but more than happy to taste the food as it was obvious that food for the staff was very plain and simple.
“You should not do that! It is not right!” Lady Grogda said as she stood up showing more alarm than outrage.
The footman had already consumed the sample where he at first looked like he liked it. However, he suddenly started to choke as his face turned bright red and falling to his knees. Lady Ludmilla stood up in horror as the footman was gagging begging for water. I handed him my silver chalice with what I assumed was apple cider where he chugged it down then begged for more.
Finally, after three more cups of water given by another footman, first footman just lay on his back almost in a stupor. It was as if his mind was blank.
“What is this?” I asked as I pointed to my meal looking at both Lady Ludmilla and Lady Grogda.
“I do not know!” Said Lady Ludmilla looking at her mother with a strange look.
“Do not give me that! What did you do?” I demanded with a my voiced raised and now pointing my finger at them.
“It was a love potion. It was to make you like me.” Said Lady Grogda meekly and looking sheepishly at the ground.
“Seriously! That was more than a simple love potion!” I yelled my outrage.
“I swear that is all it was. I had to hide its not so pleasant taste with spice.” Lady Grogda stated her defense but still not able to look me in the eye.
“Lady Ludmilla, I must now ask that you bring me the king's message as I am now leaving Avalon.” I commanded with rage in my countenance.
Lady Ludmilla fled the great hall without replying. Lady Grogda just sat down with her head down looking at the floor saying nothing.
With exasperation, I called out to my people. “House of Wyatt, Ladies and girls we are leaving! Quickly gather your things and be out front within a little span!”
With that, I stormed out of the great hall to the shock of all present. Up in the guest chamber, I changed clothes into my bluejeans, a blue shirt and a tan leather vest. Pulling on my boots and strapping on my weapons belt, I looked over seeing Gus and Lukas already packed up my discarded clothing and was ready to leave as they were staying clear of my angry outbursts.
Down at the carts, I ordered my guards to ready themselves to leave. I sent Lukas to call all the servants in the inn to be ready to leave immediately. Razor and Meowth jumped down from their perch on the first two carriages with questioning looks.
“They tried to poison me! Can you believe it?” I said angrily as I swept my arm to point at the fortress.
“Meow Lord Wyatt, that is clawful. Do you want meow to use them like a scratching post?” Asked Meowth as her tail went straight in what I assumed was either surprise or anger.
Razor just gave a low grumbling growl with teeth bared as he looked at the fortress.
Forty minutes later as my people were loading up, Lady Ludmilla approached with her head down.
“I am sorry Lord Wyatt. It seems you do not have any messages from the king.” Lady Ludmilla said never once looking me in the eye.
“I see. Send a message to the king that I left Avalon today and as commanded traveling as quickly as I can. The king is expecting my update so make sure it is properly sent!” I said with a warning.
I ordered a florse saddled for I needed fresh air as I was still furious. I actually led our people out and toward the main north south road which Nick panicked a bit and settled with riding next to me. As we approached the main crossroads of the city, I saw a large dinning hall and ordered a halt for all of our people to have breakfast. The meal consisted of roasted mutton, eggs, apple pancakes and apple jam. They also had fresh chilled milk and apple cider which really went well with the sweet dishes. Our group apparently cleaned them out and they had to turn away a few customers until mid day.
After breakfast, I went to the adventurer's guild that was a few buildings to the south. It was a four story building of decent size. I allowed Old Maude with a one of the house guards to go to the apothecary shop across the road along with the two Alphardian servants Aura and Sylvia. Inside the adventurer's guild, I asked for Marine as instructed. It was then I learned that Marine was Zack Talley's girl where they were to marry soon as she proudly let me know her good news.
“Zack said to tell you this is a level one escort. Whatever that means.” I repeated what Zack had told me to say.
“Thank you. It simply means Zack thinks there would be no problems and just being present is enough to discourage any potential thieves. The total is two hundred fifty denari for basic escort with an A ranked adventurer.” Marine said with a smile
After paying the fee for the job request, I asked Marine to speak to someone about Andros that was brought in by man guard Lars.
“I am Supervisor Etan Borg and assistant to Guild Master Henry Stewart. It is a pleasure to be at your service Count Wyatt..” Stated Etan with a salute and bow.
“Pleasure is mine.” I replied with a salute and nod of my head.
“We have investigated Andros. His party the Finders of Avalon specialize in retrieving lost items or stolen goods from thieves. It appears his party was specifically requested to recover a lost ventu volpis. We do not have any more details for the job other than this.” Etan stated as he read from a page in his hand.
“Who hired them to steal from me? Make no mistake, they were hired to steal from me!” I said as I was showing my anger and frustration.
“Normally, we would not disclose who posted job requests to those not apart of the contract. However, given the circumstances, I was instructed to tell you it was Viscountess Lady Ludmilla. It seems she contracted and paid a merchant from Xanadu for a ventu volpis. It is our understanding that merchant was placed on a Quenya trade ship where he will go on trial for his many crimes in Svarta. The Finders of Avalon should not have tried to take your ventu volpis. Nor should they have taken on the job given the crimes of the merchant without more information.” Etan explained what the guild knew.
“What will happen to Andros?” I asked frankly.
“The Guild Master will hold a hearing with S and an A ranked members who will advise on the issues. I expect he will be found guilty but will escape the ten year punishment. More like one to two years of labor for the guild doing low ranked jobs that no one wants while being supervised by myself or a C ranked or higher adventurer. His pay will be one third of normal with the rest going to repay the guild or costs associated with his lapse in judgment.” Etan replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I see. The thing that irks me is they attacked my people and wounded one of my guards with a slinger's stone.” I explained my outrage.
“I was not aware of this fact. Master Stewart will compensate you as the law requires. Unfortunately, Master Stewart left for Camelot for meeting with the war counsel on Astria's response to the Empire's latest invasion. I will send a filoxis to let Master Stewart know that there was injury, offense and honor requirements. I understand you will be traveling to Camelot and am certain Master Stewart will seek you out to give you a formal apology and see you are properly compensated.” Etan stated with a salute and bow.
“Good enough. Let me know the outcome of the hearing for Andros. I do not like loose ends and a potential enemy looking for revenge.” I said mater of factually.
“Understood. I will relay your concerns to Master Stewart. Etan replied with another salute and bow.
Leaving the adventure's guild, I decided to visit the tradesman's guild and merchant's storefront while Old Maude was still busy across the street. The girls came with me as they had been requesting things like combs, brushes and scented oils plus a few other special feminine items they needed.
Once all the girls got what they were needing and getting those items stowed with their baggage, Old Maude came back with a small crate filled with items to make medicines. While the baggage was being loaded and sorted, I went to see the information broker's desk and inquired about Chamberlain Robert Duffy. I paid the requested fee of one erythro given his status in the city. I was shown a file which listed the qualities, character and known habits of Robert. There was a section about vices and food preferences. The only vice was seeing a woman who was a widow listed as a paid mistress. Basically, Robert was a straight as an arrow honorable man. I smiled as the report made me feel better about who I was helping.
Finally, with everyone loaded up, we headed out of the city of Avalon over the southern main bridge and gate that was just like the north one but slightly longer with a guard tower protected draw bridge section to let ships pass. After about two hours, I had calmed down enough that I rode in the carriage as was expected of a person of rank. I just looked out seeing nothing but the vast wheat fields of the Capital Region realizing how lucky I had been to escape the evils of the ladies of Fortress Avalon.
2024.05.20 02:50 YukkiRose WIBTA for submitting a noise complaint after saying I wouldn't?
I live with my sister in an apartment. We have been here for 2 years now, and the place is quiet, save for a gaggle of kids ranging from 2 - 9 years old playing outside. The kids have not caused us any issues. They usually play outside in the small lot unsupervised, but they aren't annoying.
The issue is the new neighbors that moved in across from us.
These neighbors, a couple, watch the kids sometimes. The issue is that the couple is LOUD. I can hear them clearly from my room, because they shout at the kids on the stairwell, which is next to my bed. The lady shouts near constantly when addressing the kids.
The issue is that I work overnights. I work 3pm to 11pm, and 11pm to 7am, so the only consistent time I have to sleep is 8am until 2pm.
It has been a struggle getting any sleep because they will be stomping and shouting when I'm sleeping, and it wakes me up when I'm trying to rest before a shift.
Today my sister stepped outside to ask them to keep the noise down. Nothing changed. I went outside to try explaining to them what my situation is.
I said that their shouting wakes me up, and asked if we can work on a compromise. The lady said, "We can compromise when we move out." I said that I work overnights and can only sleep during the morning. Her husband says, "I used to work overnights, and no one else cared. This is the real world, and we're allowed to be out here. Why do you want us to whisper and tip-toe around for you?"
So, I replied, "You're saying I don't deserve to sleep for more than 3 hours?"
I said that I make an effort to keep quiet when I'm leaving for my job at night and would appreciate the same courtesy for when I am asleep. I asked if it would be fair to keep their voices down around the stairwell from 8am-2pm. They replied, "You need to take it up with the kids' parents, because we aren't doing anything wrong." I told them the kids were not the issue, and it was the adults' voices that woke me up. They argued back that there was no noise curfew after 8am, and that a complaint wouldn't do anything. I said I wouldn't submit one.
One of the older kids apologized and said that she would talk to her mom. I was in the middle of thanking her when the lady interrupted us by telling the kid, "No! Don't apologize for being a kid and playing!"
The husband added, "What do you even do at night anyway?"
My sister heard this and stepped out. She firmly told them that the issue was the adults were shouting and repeatedly waking me up. They were suddenly apologetic. We headed inside, and for a few minutes they're still shouting. But from my room I can hear the lady shout at the kids, "Stop shouting! You're being rude to our neighbors!" or "Get off the stairwell!" In a loud voice that I can still hear. I think she was doing this out of spite.
I'm considering raising a complaint to the apartment complex anyway, so they have this on record. I'm paranoid that the neighbors will retaliate. WIBTA if I submit a complaint anyway?
submitted by YukkiRose to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]
The issue is the new neighbors that moved in across from us.
These neighbors, a couple, watch the kids sometimes. The issue is that the couple is LOUD. I can hear them clearly from my room, because they shout at the kids on the stairwell, which is next to my bed. The lady shouts near constantly when addressing the kids.
The issue is that I work overnights. I work 3pm to 11pm, and 11pm to 7am, so the only consistent time I have to sleep is 8am until 2pm.
It has been a struggle getting any sleep because they will be stomping and shouting when I'm sleeping, and it wakes me up when I'm trying to rest before a shift.
Today my sister stepped outside to ask them to keep the noise down. Nothing changed. I went outside to try explaining to them what my situation is.
I said that their shouting wakes me up, and asked if we can work on a compromise. The lady said, "We can compromise when we move out." I said that I work overnights and can only sleep during the morning. Her husband says, "I used to work overnights, and no one else cared. This is the real world, and we're allowed to be out here. Why do you want us to whisper and tip-toe around for you?"
So, I replied, "You're saying I don't deserve to sleep for more than 3 hours?"
I said that I make an effort to keep quiet when I'm leaving for my job at night and would appreciate the same courtesy for when I am asleep. I asked if it would be fair to keep their voices down around the stairwell from 8am-2pm. They replied, "You need to take it up with the kids' parents, because we aren't doing anything wrong." I told them the kids were not the issue, and it was the adults' voices that woke me up. They argued back that there was no noise curfew after 8am, and that a complaint wouldn't do anything. I said I wouldn't submit one.
One of the older kids apologized and said that she would talk to her mom. I was in the middle of thanking her when the lady interrupted us by telling the kid, "No! Don't apologize for being a kid and playing!"
The husband added, "What do you even do at night anyway?"
My sister heard this and stepped out. She firmly told them that the issue was the adults were shouting and repeatedly waking me up. They were suddenly apologetic. We headed inside, and for a few minutes they're still shouting. But from my room I can hear the lady shout at the kids, "Stop shouting! You're being rude to our neighbors!" or "Get off the stairwell!" In a loud voice that I can still hear. I think she was doing this out of spite.
I'm considering raising a complaint to the apartment complex anyway, so they have this on record. I'm paranoid that the neighbors will retaliate. WIBTA if I submit a complaint anyway?
2024.05.20 02:32 Colins76 Girl with Fluffy Hair -Picasso
We bought this about 15 years ago. I always wondered is it even real? I hear he was pretty prolific, and it seems pretty real. Antiques roadshow was in town last week, and I took it to see if they could tell me anything about it. the person I spoke to didn’t want to appraise it, but suggested I keep investigating. He suggested I send an inquiry to an auction house in New York. When I did they couldn’t appraise without getting experts involved and me sending it in. I was doing some looking around on the internet and found limited ceramics based of of this image. It called Femme au Cheveux Flous (Fluffy-haired Woman). The Roadshow appraiser mentioned this picture has two tones of paper due to how it had been framed in the sun without proper glass protection. So someone had it framed for awhile before it ever got to me. It has a small pin hole as of it was stuck to a bulletin board at some point too. Anybody have more info on this I’d love to hear it.
submitted by Colins76 to whatsthisworth [link] [comments]
2024.05.20 02:24 xtremexavier15 TMPI 13
The episode resumed on a shot of Zee and Jo, their skin tones back to normal, running up to a smiling Chris. "Welcome back," he told the camera. "Zee and helper Jo are the first to arrive here, at the world's largest mud puddle!" The camera pulled back, revealing that the trio was standing near the edge of a large lake of burbling mud, a measuring stick rising out of it at the nearest edge.
"It's eight feet deep," Chris explained over a close-up of the measuring stick showing the mud reaching up very nearly to the 8' mark, "and 200 yards across. And," the camera quick-panned to the far right side of the 'puddle', "since it's too thick to swim through," the shot cut back to the couple and Chris, "the only way to the other side is with one of you piggybacking the other."
"Umm...," Zee said hesitantly, sharing a wary look with Jo, "doesn't that mean the person on the bottom..."
"Will drown?" Chris finished. "Yes."
"What?!" Jo said in wide-eyed shock.
"Unless they use this garden hose!" Chris added, a light chime playing as he held up a length of green hose.
Zee let out a breath. "Okay then. Guess I'm on the bottom, then."
Jo's eyes widened a bit in a brief bit of surprise, and she looked at her partner. "I should be objecting to this since I'm supposed to be the helper, but hey. No heavy lifting from me."
"Yeah…" Zee agreed half heartedly.
Confessional: Zee
"I was able to hold Jo onto my back while we were skiing," Zee told the confessional. "I can still do the same while under mud."
Confessional Ends
"I know that I said you were weak in the past," Jo said, "but that was until I saw that you were able to make it this far in the game."
"You thought wrong about me," Zee replied. "I wasn’t active at first in challenges and finding food, but with Julia eliminated, I was able to grow and become a finalist."
Chris suddenly stepped between the two. "How touching. Now start the challenge."
The scene cut to Zee and Jo jumping into the mud, the former disappearing below its depths while the latter, on his shoulders, held up the length of the hose. They started moving forward, and the camera panned back to the left to show Harold, Scarlett, and Chris holding up another length of hose.
"Yeah, I'll be on top," Harold stated.
"Pardon me?" Scarlett countered, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't trust you not to let me drown," Harold told her. "Self-preservation comes first."
Scarlett groaned. "That's fair," she said, taking the hose from Chris, "but if you let me suffocate, I'm dragging you down into the mud with me."
"Crustal," Harold deadpanned, and as Scarlett crouched down, she jumped onto the brainiac's shoulders. Scarlett stood back up and put the end of the hose in her mouth, and she jumped into the mud.
The tense music faded away as the camera moved onto Chris, the host sighing as Chef walked up. "You think the mud was a bad idea?" Chris asked. "It's a little quiet… oh yeah," Chris said as if in sudden realization, "almost forgot about the Peanut Gallery. Bring 'em back in!" he said into a walkie talkie he only then pulled out.
Moments later, the wind kicked up around them, and the camera zoomed out to show the large helicopter flying in with the former contestants still hanging – and screaming as they swayed ominously – below it. "Would you let us down already?!" Leshawna shouted angrily. "It's freezin' up here!"
"Yeah, I want to cheer for Zee!" Julia chimed in.
"If I wasn't tied up right now, I'd have half a mind to pound you!" Duncan shouted at the host.
The camera focused on DJ. "Hey, Chris?" he looked forward and asked loudly. "Just bring us down before anybody else gets miffed at you!"
"No, and I don't care," Chris answered with a calm smile, until Chef whispered to him. A flat note played over a close-up of Chris staring blankly at him. "Huh...good point," he admitted. "Ooh!" he said with a sudden grin. "I just had an idea!"
A flash took the scene to Zee and Jo, the tense challenge music resuming at a low volume and slow pace in the background. They were still slogging through the mud, Zee out of sight but Jo only submerged up to her stomach. She looked back over her shoulder, smiled, then said "Keep going!" into the piece of hose she was holding. "They're way far behind!"
Confessional: Zee
"So as it turns out," Zee said, "being submerged in the mud is kinda like being trapped in the dark. But there aren't any animals below to scare me."
Confessional Ends
The music ramped up as Jo suddenly stopped moving, then seemed to turn around and start moving back towards the start. "Uh, Fruit Loop?" she asked into the hose. "We're going the wrong way!"
The camera cut to Harold, looking somewhat bored as he held the hose atop Scarlett's shoulders, before noticing the other team and frowning. "Why are they coming this way?"
"Ugh! They're too safe to sabotage each other!" came the sudden voice of Chris McLean, the camera cutting to him standing in the show's jeep with Chef at the wheel, speaking into the microphone of the jeep's loudspeaker. "Deploy the 2.0 model!"
The shot cut back to Harold and Jo as they looked around with strange expressions, the sound of something like a rocket taking off coming from somewhere in the distance. They looked up and to the left, and the camera shifted to their viewpoint to show a large object shooting up through the sky overhead...
...then abruptly diving towards them, revealing itself as a red-eyed robotic bear with small jet engines coming out of its back. Harold and Jo screamed as their respective partners continued in their previous directions, getting out of the way as the Bear landed in the mud. It hit with enough force to cause a wave of mud, which shot all the way across the puddle carrying the finalists and their helpers along for the ride. All four immediately began to cough upon landing in a muddy heap.
Confessional: Harold
"At least I have a better shot," Harold said. "We're tied right now, but who knows what other tricks Chris has up his sleeves."
Confessional Ends
A close-up of the nozzle of a fire hose in Chef's hands preceded him blasting the muddy finalists and helpers with water, all four screaming where they'd landed on the shore of the 'puddle'. Moments later, the water was shut off, leaving them drenched but clean.
"We're all tied up," Chris announced with a smile. "Perfect time for a little break. First, let's bring in the Peanut Gallery again." He took out his remote and pointed it at a patch of ground nearby, a hole opening up in it and a rather shoddy-looking set of stadium seats shooting up out of it with the ten former contestants seated – and still tied-up – in it.
"Sha-finally," Lightning said, the shot cutting to him sitting in the top row with B, DJ, Duncan, and Max and Leshawna, Ella, Julia, Sammy, and Amy in the bottom row. "Are we gonna get to watch the rest of the challenge now?"
"Yup!" Chris answered with a happy smile, pressing the button on his remote again so that a large widescreen television emerged from another hole in the ground near him and the finalists.
"Will you untie us too?" Ella chimed in.
Chris huffed. "Whine, whine, whine," he said in annoyance. "Don't I do enough for you kids as it is?"
"No," all fourteen of the season's cast members replied at the same time.
A flat note played over a close-up of the host pursing his lips. "Yeah, I owe Chef twenty bucks about that," Chris said, the camera zooming back out again to show the finalists and helpers. "Everyone, grab a seat," he instructed, and the four reluctantly sat down on the logs lying behind them. "I'm gonna show you some of my favorite clips from the show..." He pointed his remote at the TV, and the shot focused in as it switched on and started to play footage of a confessional...
"Dunderhead was already pretty useless," Jo complained. "But now he's making moves on one of the actually decent players on the team? Not on my watch!"
The camera cut in close to show Jo pausing and looking back. "Something on your mind, Anti-Squeakerbox?" she asked, the camera shifting to show B peering at her and shaking his head.
“It's not what you think it is," Jo told him. "As long as they are on this team, Julia and Zee will not date."
“Not exactly how I wanted the elimination to play, but hey. Julia’s gone and with Zee still in the game, I could manipulate him into doing whatever I say,” Jo grinned.
The footage paused, and Chris leaned out in front of the television with a wide and mischievous grin. "Seems like there isn't a shipper on deck…" he said impishly.
"So you were trying to keep me and Julia apart?" Zee said as the camera moved to him and Jo, his eyes wide with shock. "Does this mean that...,"
"Yup. I convinced Julia to quit," Jo replied. "I didn't expect her to fully go through with it since I was gonna vote you out!"
"I can't believe you'd try and do that!" Zee said with a glare!"
"If I didn't do what I did, then you two likely would've blown challenges for us like the dueling one!" Jo argued back.
The camera focused on Julia in the Peanut Gallery. "I was trying to defend my boyfriend, but sure," she said dryly.
"I'm just worried what Chris is gonna show from Scarlett," Sammy said. "It looks like he wants to mess up the finalists and their helpers..."
"Maybe he won't show anything?" Amy suggested. "I mean, it's not like Scarlett and Harold were that close to begin with."
The shot cut back to a smiling Chris. "Oh, don't worry, I have no intention of leaving those guys out of all this fun," he said happily.
"I don't see how," Scarlett said. "Harold already knows everything about me now. I’m practically an open book."
Chris laughed. "Seems you forgot that the cameras are always on. So here's some more juicy information that everybody gets to hear." The screen on the TV went from static to a scene from the fifth episode.
Scarlett herself grabbed the dueling stick Ella retrieved, fished an electric eel out of the water, and tossed it to Max. "Max!" she cried, and her teammates looked at her in confusion, prompting her to pretend that she had coughed. "Pardon me!"
“The plan was for Max to be the only one not in the trap, so the team would know he built it and vote him off!” Scarlett confessed.
"I overheard Leshawna and Harold's conversation when they were foraging together, and Leshawna being on to me is something that I refuse to let happen," Scarlett claimed. “Zee's really gullible enough to deceive, and I'll try to talk to Ella.”
A deep, dramatic note was struck over a shot of Harold in shock. "So it was you who got Leshawna eliminated!" he scowled in Scarlett's direction.
"I wasn't ready to come out just yet, and between the two of you, you were less likely to warn anyone about me!" Scarlett retorted.
"So all this time, Scarlett was aiming to usurp her master!" Max ranted.
"I don't blame her," Leshawna commented. “As much of a pain as she is, I would've done the same thing and sent your annoying behind home.”
"Okay," Chris said happily as the shot moved onto him, "I'm sensing some major hostility and I'm liking it. I'm out of popcorn, though, so we should probably get back to the challenge."
"Seriously?!" the finalists and helpers alike exclaimed.
"Obviously, the helpers aren't gonna be very helpful anymore," Chris replied. "So, instead of helpers, Jo and Scarlett will now be hinderers." As he spoke, Chef walked back into view with a pair of video game controllers, tossing one each to Scarlett and Jo. "The island is now back online," Chris continued, "and, with these controllers, they will be able to throw up obstacles to throw you down, or, completely crush you."
The shot cut to Scarlett as she looked at her controller and smirked. "Good to know."
"Looking forward to it," Jo said in determination.
Harold and Zee gulped, and Chris laughed. "That was the good part," he said. "Let me tell you the bad part. You have ten minutes to finish this challenge," he told Zee and Harold. "If neither of you do, Scarlett and Jo get to split the money."
"Dude, what?" Zee said in shock.
"You can't do that!" Harold protested.
"I can! I will! I am! GO!" Chris announced, blowing his airhorn right in Chef's face, earning an annoyed sigh from the man. Harold and Zee immediately ran off, but the camera cut to a close-up of a thoughtful Jo.
"Well...I want the money, but I'm not really comfortable with how this is set up," Jo said to herself. "But...I guess it wouldn't be too bad if I just made this a little more challenging for them..."
"Do what you want," Scarlett said, the camera panning over to show her grinning darkly with her controller in hand. "I'm getting my justice."
Confessional: Jo
“And I thought I was an underhanded person,” Jo mentioned to herself. “Velma has less morals than me and Gnome Master.”
Confessional: Scarlett
"I was snubbed in the last episode," Scarlett confessed. "And now that I've been given permission, I can stop the finalists from winning without getting electrocuted!" She pulled out the remote from the seventh episode. "I don't even need this device. I have a controller to do the job for it."
Confessionals End
A few quick drum taps opened up a deep and dangerous challenge theme, the scene returning to Zee and Harold sprinting across the open field only to gape in shock as the pine trees in the background starting launching like rockets.
"What the heck?" Harold said. "Rocket trees?"
One landed right behind them, forcing both finalists to roll forward out of the way. "This island is wild!" Zee cried as the two continued running, more and more trees landing behind them like massive spears.
The two were shown together in a brief close-up, raising their eyebrows in surprise. A quick-pan ahead revealed the landscape changing, trees and rock formations rising up out of the artificial ground to form a large, dense barrier.
Harold jumped ahead of Zee as they climbed over the first big rock formation.
Zee vaulted downward and dashing forward along a lower 'path' among the rocks. Just as he was about to jump down onto grass, however, a boulder shot upward – and he landed on it groin-first. A close-up showed him letting out a high-pitched squeal of pain.
Harold's wince drew the camera's attention back upward to show him leaping from a boulder and grabbing onto the branch of a tree, only for the tree to suddenly shoot back down into the ground – causing him to yell as it dragged him down and slammed him back-first onto a fallen log.
Zee gave him a quick concerned glance as he jumped onto the same log, then upwards onto a rock formation before climbing onward and to the right and out of sight.
The scene cut back to the hinderers, both still working their controllers with Scarlett still looking considerably happier about it. "No need to change what works," Jo said uncertainty.
"What happened to that cutthroat attitude you've been displaying?" Scarlett asked. "Don't throw it away when I can get something out of it. And lower some of those trees. They're giving them too much cover from this storm I'm whipping up."
The camera panned onto the monitor to show Zee and Harold struggling against a powerful wind as they walked through what looked like a dense forest as leaves, dust, branches, and various small woodland animals blew past them.
A focus on the monitor's screen transitioned the scene back to the challenge. "I think...I can see the finish line in the distance," Zee said, pausing for a moment as he struggled against the intense gale.
"They're not making this easy on us," Harold commented.
The pair briefly passed behind a thick and mossy pine tree, the camera zooming in slightly as they reappeared. "Would you?" Zee asked.
"...I guess not," Harold answered after a moment.
The shot cut back to the Peanut Gallery to show them watching with worry and anticipation. "C'mon, Harold," Leshawna spoke. "Just hang in there."
"I know you can win this, Zee," Julia said. "You deserve it after everything."
Then the camera cut back to the hinderers, Chris standing next to their monitor with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face. "Ooh! They're getting close!" he said excitedly, prompting Scarlett to scowl and Jo to frown.
Once more the scene moved back to the finalists, their arms raised to buffer themselves against the winds – snow beginning to fall and lightning beginning to crack in the background - with Harold in the lead. "Two minutes left!" Chris called out over the island's loudspeaker. "Two minutes!"
"I...," Harold said with glee. "I think I can make it!"
"Not if I can help it!" Zee shouted, speeding up as the dense trees around him and Harold began to recede into the ground – and the tense and dangerous challenge music resumed. "If I win, me and Julia can go out and change the world together."
"I have to win this," Harold told him. "I've been undervalued and looked down on by my peers, friends, and even my family. I need to prove my might."
The snowy ground below their feet began to crack. A hollow sound played, then all at once, the ground shot up under them, earning startled yells from both. The shot soon cut to the new peak they were standing on rising up into the sky, then stopping.
"Drats..." Zee muttered, both finalists looking down with wide eyes. his final word echoed as the camera zoomed out, revealing the snowy mountain they were now at the top of.
The Peanut Gallery was shown gasping, as were Jo, though Scarlett was smiling as their misfortune. "Twenty seconds left...!" Chris said as the camera moved on to him looking at his watch.
The shot cut back to Harold. "I guess it's over," he sighed. “Scarlett wins after all.”
Zee noticed a bulge in the snow beside him. The boy shoved his hand into it and pulled out the phone Duncan stole from Chris. "I don't know how this got here, but we have to get down. Start stomping the ground."
Harold nodded and stomped on the ground at his feet, and after a few cracks, Zee hurled the phone down, breaking the device apart. Their eyes widened as the mountain began to crumble under them, and the ground imploded in on itself.
"Six! Five!" Chris began to count off, the music cutting out save for a single plodding note to highlight each number. "Four!" The camera panned onto the television, showing both finalists tumbling through the snow and rock. "Three! Two! One!" The shot cut to the finish banner, then zoomed out to show the avalanche stopping just under it – with neither finalist in sight. "GAME OVER!" he announced, blowing on his airhorn as a subdued but triumphant riff played.
Jo stood up in surprise, and Scarlett started cheering.
"My mission was a success!" Scarlett said in victory. “Now hand over my well-deserved prize!”
"Congratulations Jo and Scarlett," Chris said with his usual smile. "Revenge is sweetest-" he glanced at the monitor- "ohhhhh, what have we here?" he said with a sudden look of shock, the music cutting out as he pointed at the television screen.
A sharp note played as a familiar hand stuck out of the snow lying just past the finish line and waved. Scarlett's jaw dropped in shock, and Jo let out a sigh of relief.
The scene cut to the finish line, the camera pulling back a little ways as Chef walked up with a stretcher, dressed as a female nurse. Leshawna ran onscreen and pushed him out of the way. Chef flew off frame with a shout, and Leshawna grabbed the arm and pulled, freeing a shocked and snowy Harold from the aftermath of the avalanche. "Oh," he groaned, looking around as Leshawna dropped him on the stretcher, "what happened?" he asked as the victorious music began to play again with much more enthusiasm.
"You won, Ginger Baby!" Leshawna answered with a smile, the camera pulling out even more to show Harold looking back at the finish banner.
"I did it!" Harold said excitedly. "Harold Norbert Cheever Doris McGrady V has claimed victory! Boo yah!" he raised his arms and cheered, the shot cutting away to show all of the Peanut Gallery cheering.
“We weren't able to talk to each other as much, and it's clear we like each other as more than just friends, but how about we hang out a little bit back home and see where things go?” Leshawna suggested.
“As long as we don't rush into a committed relationship, I'd like that,” Harold smiled back.
The camera panned to the left to show Julia frantically pulling a dazed and half-conscious Zee from the rest of the avalanche, and picking him up onto her back.
"Julia," Zee said weakly, "I'm sorry that I-"
"Be quiet," Julia said with a weak smile as she carried her boyfriend over to the stretcher and set him down next to Harold. "You need to rest."
"But-" Zee tried to say.
He was cut off by Julia grabbing his head and kissing him full on the lips. "You didn’t win the money, but we can still provide for the world in our own ways, and with the power of love," she said with a smile as she broke the kiss, leaving Zee looking dopey.
The capstone theme began to play as the footage skipped ahead to a shot of the open sky, the double-rotored helicopter soon flying up into view. "That's it for this very, very off season," Chris began, standing in the open doorway with Zee and Julia sitting on the edge letting their legs dangle freely with Julia leaning into Zee; Harold and Scarlett standing on either side of Chris, the latter annoyed and the former grinning while holding the suitcase full of money to his chest; and the rest of the cast, crouching down and peering over in the gaps between and behind the rest, constantly jockeying for position as they tried to get one last shot of themselves on camera.
"This is Chris McLean, saying if you can't stand the pain-" the handsome host continued, the shot cutting in closer- "stay off the Total! Drama! Paaaahkitew Island!"
"RE-VENGE!" Max suddenly yelled from behind Scarlett, shoving her out of the helicopter, and the brainiac screamed as she fell.
The camera lingered on the dumbfounded looks of Chris and the other ex-campers, all of them staring at Max in shock. "This is how a traitor should be rewarded," he said, crossing his arms and closing his eyes defiantly.
The ex-campers and host burst out laughing, and a fun and energetic tune started to play. The camera panned over to the windshield to show Chef laughing along with the rest of the cast from the pilot's seat, and the helicopter flew away.
The music soon faded away, though, and the scene quick-panned down to show a screaming Scarlett landing in the giant mud puddle. She quickly surfaced with a shocked splutter, and pulled herself out onto dry land. "How am I going to get home now because of those imbeciles?!"
A few ominous notes were struck, and a ferocious growl caught Scarlett's attention. She looked up, and the camera zoomed out to show Scuba Bear 2.0 standing over her, eyes red. "Heheh," the brainiac laughed nervously. "You're not going to hurt me are you?"
The scene abruptly cut outward to the full long-distance shot of the island, the ominous music ending as Scarlett's scream and Scuba Bear's snarl echoed across the lake.
(Roll the Credits)
Lightning - 14th
DJ - 13th
Amy - 12th
B - 11th
Julia - 10th
Max - 9th
Leshawna - 8th
MERGE
Jo - 7th
Duncan - 6th
Ella - 5th
Sammy - 4th
Scarlett - 3rd
Zee - 2nd
Harold - 1st
submitted by xtremexavier15 to u/xtremexavier15 [link] [comments]
"It's eight feet deep," Chris explained over a close-up of the measuring stick showing the mud reaching up very nearly to the 8' mark, "and 200 yards across. And," the camera quick-panned to the far right side of the 'puddle', "since it's too thick to swim through," the shot cut back to the couple and Chris, "the only way to the other side is with one of you piggybacking the other."
"Umm...," Zee said hesitantly, sharing a wary look with Jo, "doesn't that mean the person on the bottom..."
"Will drown?" Chris finished. "Yes."
"What?!" Jo said in wide-eyed shock.
"Unless they use this garden hose!" Chris added, a light chime playing as he held up a length of green hose.
Zee let out a breath. "Okay then. Guess I'm on the bottom, then."
Jo's eyes widened a bit in a brief bit of surprise, and she looked at her partner. "I should be objecting to this since I'm supposed to be the helper, but hey. No heavy lifting from me."
"Yeah…" Zee agreed half heartedly.
Confessional: Zee
"I was able to hold Jo onto my back while we were skiing," Zee told the confessional. "I can still do the same while under mud."
Confessional Ends
"I know that I said you were weak in the past," Jo said, "but that was until I saw that you were able to make it this far in the game."
"You thought wrong about me," Zee replied. "I wasn’t active at first in challenges and finding food, but with Julia eliminated, I was able to grow and become a finalist."
Chris suddenly stepped between the two. "How touching. Now start the challenge."
The scene cut to Zee and Jo jumping into the mud, the former disappearing below its depths while the latter, on his shoulders, held up the length of the hose. They started moving forward, and the camera panned back to the left to show Harold, Scarlett, and Chris holding up another length of hose.
"Yeah, I'll be on top," Harold stated.
"Pardon me?" Scarlett countered, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't trust you not to let me drown," Harold told her. "Self-preservation comes first."
Scarlett groaned. "That's fair," she said, taking the hose from Chris, "but if you let me suffocate, I'm dragging you down into the mud with me."
"Crustal," Harold deadpanned, and as Scarlett crouched down, she jumped onto the brainiac's shoulders. Scarlett stood back up and put the end of the hose in her mouth, and she jumped into the mud.
The tense music faded away as the camera moved onto Chris, the host sighing as Chef walked up. "You think the mud was a bad idea?" Chris asked. "It's a little quiet… oh yeah," Chris said as if in sudden realization, "almost forgot about the Peanut Gallery. Bring 'em back in!" he said into a walkie talkie he only then pulled out.
Moments later, the wind kicked up around them, and the camera zoomed out to show the large helicopter flying in with the former contestants still hanging – and screaming as they swayed ominously – below it. "Would you let us down already?!" Leshawna shouted angrily. "It's freezin' up here!"
"Yeah, I want to cheer for Zee!" Julia chimed in.
"If I wasn't tied up right now, I'd have half a mind to pound you!" Duncan shouted at the host.
The camera focused on DJ. "Hey, Chris?" he looked forward and asked loudly. "Just bring us down before anybody else gets miffed at you!"
"No, and I don't care," Chris answered with a calm smile, until Chef whispered to him. A flat note played over a close-up of Chris staring blankly at him. "Huh...good point," he admitted. "Ooh!" he said with a sudden grin. "I just had an idea!"
A flash took the scene to Zee and Jo, the tense challenge music resuming at a low volume and slow pace in the background. They were still slogging through the mud, Zee out of sight but Jo only submerged up to her stomach. She looked back over her shoulder, smiled, then said "Keep going!" into the piece of hose she was holding. "They're way far behind!"
Confessional: Zee
"So as it turns out," Zee said, "being submerged in the mud is kinda like being trapped in the dark. But there aren't any animals below to scare me."
Confessional Ends
The music ramped up as Jo suddenly stopped moving, then seemed to turn around and start moving back towards the start. "Uh, Fruit Loop?" she asked into the hose. "We're going the wrong way!"
The camera cut to Harold, looking somewhat bored as he held the hose atop Scarlett's shoulders, before noticing the other team and frowning. "Why are they coming this way?"
"Ugh! They're too safe to sabotage each other!" came the sudden voice of Chris McLean, the camera cutting to him standing in the show's jeep with Chef at the wheel, speaking into the microphone of the jeep's loudspeaker. "Deploy the 2.0 model!"
The shot cut back to Harold and Jo as they looked around with strange expressions, the sound of something like a rocket taking off coming from somewhere in the distance. They looked up and to the left, and the camera shifted to their viewpoint to show a large object shooting up through the sky overhead...
...then abruptly diving towards them, revealing itself as a red-eyed robotic bear with small jet engines coming out of its back. Harold and Jo screamed as their respective partners continued in their previous directions, getting out of the way as the Bear landed in the mud. It hit with enough force to cause a wave of mud, which shot all the way across the puddle carrying the finalists and their helpers along for the ride. All four immediately began to cough upon landing in a muddy heap.
Confessional: Harold
"At least I have a better shot," Harold said. "We're tied right now, but who knows what other tricks Chris has up his sleeves."
Confessional Ends
A close-up of the nozzle of a fire hose in Chef's hands preceded him blasting the muddy finalists and helpers with water, all four screaming where they'd landed on the shore of the 'puddle'. Moments later, the water was shut off, leaving them drenched but clean.
"We're all tied up," Chris announced with a smile. "Perfect time for a little break. First, let's bring in the Peanut Gallery again." He took out his remote and pointed it at a patch of ground nearby, a hole opening up in it and a rather shoddy-looking set of stadium seats shooting up out of it with the ten former contestants seated – and still tied-up – in it.
"Sha-finally," Lightning said, the shot cutting to him sitting in the top row with B, DJ, Duncan, and Max and Leshawna, Ella, Julia, Sammy, and Amy in the bottom row. "Are we gonna get to watch the rest of the challenge now?"
"Yup!" Chris answered with a happy smile, pressing the button on his remote again so that a large widescreen television emerged from another hole in the ground near him and the finalists.
"Will you untie us too?" Ella chimed in.
Chris huffed. "Whine, whine, whine," he said in annoyance. "Don't I do enough for you kids as it is?"
"No," all fourteen of the season's cast members replied at the same time.
A flat note played over a close-up of the host pursing his lips. "Yeah, I owe Chef twenty bucks about that," Chris said, the camera zooming back out again to show the finalists and helpers. "Everyone, grab a seat," he instructed, and the four reluctantly sat down on the logs lying behind them. "I'm gonna show you some of my favorite clips from the show..." He pointed his remote at the TV, and the shot focused in as it switched on and started to play footage of a confessional...
"Dunderhead was already pretty useless," Jo complained. "But now he's making moves on one of the actually decent players on the team? Not on my watch!"
The camera cut in close to show Jo pausing and looking back. "Something on your mind, Anti-Squeakerbox?" she asked, the camera shifting to show B peering at her and shaking his head.
“It's not what you think it is," Jo told him. "As long as they are on this team, Julia and Zee will not date."
“Not exactly how I wanted the elimination to play, but hey. Julia’s gone and with Zee still in the game, I could manipulate him into doing whatever I say,” Jo grinned.
The footage paused, and Chris leaned out in front of the television with a wide and mischievous grin. "Seems like there isn't a shipper on deck…" he said impishly.
"So you were trying to keep me and Julia apart?" Zee said as the camera moved to him and Jo, his eyes wide with shock. "Does this mean that...,"
"Yup. I convinced Julia to quit," Jo replied. "I didn't expect her to fully go through with it since I was gonna vote you out!"
"I can't believe you'd try and do that!" Zee said with a glare!"
"If I didn't do what I did, then you two likely would've blown challenges for us like the dueling one!" Jo argued back.
The camera focused on Julia in the Peanut Gallery. "I was trying to defend my boyfriend, but sure," she said dryly.
"I'm just worried what Chris is gonna show from Scarlett," Sammy said. "It looks like he wants to mess up the finalists and their helpers..."
"Maybe he won't show anything?" Amy suggested. "I mean, it's not like Scarlett and Harold were that close to begin with."
The shot cut back to a smiling Chris. "Oh, don't worry, I have no intention of leaving those guys out of all this fun," he said happily.
"I don't see how," Scarlett said. "Harold already knows everything about me now. I’m practically an open book."
Chris laughed. "Seems you forgot that the cameras are always on. So here's some more juicy information that everybody gets to hear." The screen on the TV went from static to a scene from the fifth episode.
Scarlett herself grabbed the dueling stick Ella retrieved, fished an electric eel out of the water, and tossed it to Max. "Max!" she cried, and her teammates looked at her in confusion, prompting her to pretend that she had coughed. "Pardon me!"
“The plan was for Max to be the only one not in the trap, so the team would know he built it and vote him off!” Scarlett confessed.
"I overheard Leshawna and Harold's conversation when they were foraging together, and Leshawna being on to me is something that I refuse to let happen," Scarlett claimed. “Zee's really gullible enough to deceive, and I'll try to talk to Ella.”
A deep, dramatic note was struck over a shot of Harold in shock. "So it was you who got Leshawna eliminated!" he scowled in Scarlett's direction.
"I wasn't ready to come out just yet, and between the two of you, you were less likely to warn anyone about me!" Scarlett retorted.
"So all this time, Scarlett was aiming to usurp her master!" Max ranted.
"I don't blame her," Leshawna commented. “As much of a pain as she is, I would've done the same thing and sent your annoying behind home.”
"Okay," Chris said happily as the shot moved onto him, "I'm sensing some major hostility and I'm liking it. I'm out of popcorn, though, so we should probably get back to the challenge."
"Seriously?!" the finalists and helpers alike exclaimed.
"Obviously, the helpers aren't gonna be very helpful anymore," Chris replied. "So, instead of helpers, Jo and Scarlett will now be hinderers." As he spoke, Chef walked back into view with a pair of video game controllers, tossing one each to Scarlett and Jo. "The island is now back online," Chris continued, "and, with these controllers, they will be able to throw up obstacles to throw you down, or, completely crush you."
The shot cut to Scarlett as she looked at her controller and smirked. "Good to know."
"Looking forward to it," Jo said in determination.
Harold and Zee gulped, and Chris laughed. "That was the good part," he said. "Let me tell you the bad part. You have ten minutes to finish this challenge," he told Zee and Harold. "If neither of you do, Scarlett and Jo get to split the money."
"Dude, what?" Zee said in shock.
"You can't do that!" Harold protested.
"I can! I will! I am! GO!" Chris announced, blowing his airhorn right in Chef's face, earning an annoyed sigh from the man. Harold and Zee immediately ran off, but the camera cut to a close-up of a thoughtful Jo.
"Well...I want the money, but I'm not really comfortable with how this is set up," Jo said to herself. "But...I guess it wouldn't be too bad if I just made this a little more challenging for them..."
"Do what you want," Scarlett said, the camera panning over to show her grinning darkly with her controller in hand. "I'm getting my justice."
Confessional: Jo
“And I thought I was an underhanded person,” Jo mentioned to herself. “Velma has less morals than me and Gnome Master.”
Confessional: Scarlett
"I was snubbed in the last episode," Scarlett confessed. "And now that I've been given permission, I can stop the finalists from winning without getting electrocuted!" She pulled out the remote from the seventh episode. "I don't even need this device. I have a controller to do the job for it."
Confessionals End
A few quick drum taps opened up a deep and dangerous challenge theme, the scene returning to Zee and Harold sprinting across the open field only to gape in shock as the pine trees in the background starting launching like rockets.
"What the heck?" Harold said. "Rocket trees?"
One landed right behind them, forcing both finalists to roll forward out of the way. "This island is wild!" Zee cried as the two continued running, more and more trees landing behind them like massive spears.
The two were shown together in a brief close-up, raising their eyebrows in surprise. A quick-pan ahead revealed the landscape changing, trees and rock formations rising up out of the artificial ground to form a large, dense barrier.
Harold jumped ahead of Zee as they climbed over the first big rock formation.
Zee vaulted downward and dashing forward along a lower 'path' among the rocks. Just as he was about to jump down onto grass, however, a boulder shot upward – and he landed on it groin-first. A close-up showed him letting out a high-pitched squeal of pain.
Harold's wince drew the camera's attention back upward to show him leaping from a boulder and grabbing onto the branch of a tree, only for the tree to suddenly shoot back down into the ground – causing him to yell as it dragged him down and slammed him back-first onto a fallen log.
Zee gave him a quick concerned glance as he jumped onto the same log, then upwards onto a rock formation before climbing onward and to the right and out of sight.
The scene cut back to the hinderers, both still working their controllers with Scarlett still looking considerably happier about it. "No need to change what works," Jo said uncertainty.
"What happened to that cutthroat attitude you've been displaying?" Scarlett asked. "Don't throw it away when I can get something out of it. And lower some of those trees. They're giving them too much cover from this storm I'm whipping up."
The camera panned onto the monitor to show Zee and Harold struggling against a powerful wind as they walked through what looked like a dense forest as leaves, dust, branches, and various small woodland animals blew past them.
A focus on the monitor's screen transitioned the scene back to the challenge. "I think...I can see the finish line in the distance," Zee said, pausing for a moment as he struggled against the intense gale.
"They're not making this easy on us," Harold commented.
The pair briefly passed behind a thick and mossy pine tree, the camera zooming in slightly as they reappeared. "Would you?" Zee asked.
"...I guess not," Harold answered after a moment.
The shot cut back to the Peanut Gallery to show them watching with worry and anticipation. "C'mon, Harold," Leshawna spoke. "Just hang in there."
"I know you can win this, Zee," Julia said. "You deserve it after everything."
Then the camera cut back to the hinderers, Chris standing next to their monitor with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face. "Ooh! They're getting close!" he said excitedly, prompting Scarlett to scowl and Jo to frown.
Once more the scene moved back to the finalists, their arms raised to buffer themselves against the winds – snow beginning to fall and lightning beginning to crack in the background - with Harold in the lead. "Two minutes left!" Chris called out over the island's loudspeaker. "Two minutes!"
"I...," Harold said with glee. "I think I can make it!"
"Not if I can help it!" Zee shouted, speeding up as the dense trees around him and Harold began to recede into the ground – and the tense and dangerous challenge music resumed. "If I win, me and Julia can go out and change the world together."
"I have to win this," Harold told him. "I've been undervalued and looked down on by my peers, friends, and even my family. I need to prove my might."
The snowy ground below their feet began to crack. A hollow sound played, then all at once, the ground shot up under them, earning startled yells from both. The shot soon cut to the new peak they were standing on rising up into the sky, then stopping.
"Drats..." Zee muttered, both finalists looking down with wide eyes. his final word echoed as the camera zoomed out, revealing the snowy mountain they were now at the top of.
The Peanut Gallery was shown gasping, as were Jo, though Scarlett was smiling as their misfortune. "Twenty seconds left...!" Chris said as the camera moved on to him looking at his watch.
The shot cut back to Harold. "I guess it's over," he sighed. “Scarlett wins after all.”
Zee noticed a bulge in the snow beside him. The boy shoved his hand into it and pulled out the phone Duncan stole from Chris. "I don't know how this got here, but we have to get down. Start stomping the ground."
Harold nodded and stomped on the ground at his feet, and after a few cracks, Zee hurled the phone down, breaking the device apart. Their eyes widened as the mountain began to crumble under them, and the ground imploded in on itself.
"Six! Five!" Chris began to count off, the music cutting out save for a single plodding note to highlight each number. "Four!" The camera panned onto the television, showing both finalists tumbling through the snow and rock. "Three! Two! One!" The shot cut to the finish banner, then zoomed out to show the avalanche stopping just under it – with neither finalist in sight. "GAME OVER!" he announced, blowing on his airhorn as a subdued but triumphant riff played.
Jo stood up in surprise, and Scarlett started cheering.
"My mission was a success!" Scarlett said in victory. “Now hand over my well-deserved prize!”
"Congratulations Jo and Scarlett," Chris said with his usual smile. "Revenge is sweetest-" he glanced at the monitor- "ohhhhh, what have we here?" he said with a sudden look of shock, the music cutting out as he pointed at the television screen.
A sharp note played as a familiar hand stuck out of the snow lying just past the finish line and waved. Scarlett's jaw dropped in shock, and Jo let out a sigh of relief.
The scene cut to the finish line, the camera pulling back a little ways as Chef walked up with a stretcher, dressed as a female nurse. Leshawna ran onscreen and pushed him out of the way. Chef flew off frame with a shout, and Leshawna grabbed the arm and pulled, freeing a shocked and snowy Harold from the aftermath of the avalanche. "Oh," he groaned, looking around as Leshawna dropped him on the stretcher, "what happened?" he asked as the victorious music began to play again with much more enthusiasm.
"You won, Ginger Baby!" Leshawna answered with a smile, the camera pulling out even more to show Harold looking back at the finish banner.
"I did it!" Harold said excitedly. "Harold Norbert Cheever Doris McGrady V has claimed victory! Boo yah!" he raised his arms and cheered, the shot cutting away to show all of the Peanut Gallery cheering.
“We weren't able to talk to each other as much, and it's clear we like each other as more than just friends, but how about we hang out a little bit back home and see where things go?” Leshawna suggested.
“As long as we don't rush into a committed relationship, I'd like that,” Harold smiled back.
The camera panned to the left to show Julia frantically pulling a dazed and half-conscious Zee from the rest of the avalanche, and picking him up onto her back.
"Julia," Zee said weakly, "I'm sorry that I-"
"Be quiet," Julia said with a weak smile as she carried her boyfriend over to the stretcher and set him down next to Harold. "You need to rest."
"But-" Zee tried to say.
He was cut off by Julia grabbing his head and kissing him full on the lips. "You didn’t win the money, but we can still provide for the world in our own ways, and with the power of love," she said with a smile as she broke the kiss, leaving Zee looking dopey.
The capstone theme began to play as the footage skipped ahead to a shot of the open sky, the double-rotored helicopter soon flying up into view. "That's it for this very, very off season," Chris began, standing in the open doorway with Zee and Julia sitting on the edge letting their legs dangle freely with Julia leaning into Zee; Harold and Scarlett standing on either side of Chris, the latter annoyed and the former grinning while holding the suitcase full of money to his chest; and the rest of the cast, crouching down and peering over in the gaps between and behind the rest, constantly jockeying for position as they tried to get one last shot of themselves on camera.
"This is Chris McLean, saying if you can't stand the pain-" the handsome host continued, the shot cutting in closer- "stay off the Total! Drama! Paaaahkitew Island!"
"RE-VENGE!" Max suddenly yelled from behind Scarlett, shoving her out of the helicopter, and the brainiac screamed as she fell.
The camera lingered on the dumbfounded looks of Chris and the other ex-campers, all of them staring at Max in shock. "This is how a traitor should be rewarded," he said, crossing his arms and closing his eyes defiantly.
The ex-campers and host burst out laughing, and a fun and energetic tune started to play. The camera panned over to the windshield to show Chef laughing along with the rest of the cast from the pilot's seat, and the helicopter flew away.
The music soon faded away, though, and the scene quick-panned down to show a screaming Scarlett landing in the giant mud puddle. She quickly surfaced with a shocked splutter, and pulled herself out onto dry land. "How am I going to get home now because of those imbeciles?!"
A few ominous notes were struck, and a ferocious growl caught Scarlett's attention. She looked up, and the camera zoomed out to show Scuba Bear 2.0 standing over her, eyes red. "Heheh," the brainiac laughed nervously. "You're not going to hurt me are you?"
The scene abruptly cut outward to the full long-distance shot of the island, the ominous music ending as Scarlett's scream and Scuba Bear's snarl echoed across the lake.
(Roll the Credits)
Lightning - 14th
DJ - 13th
Amy - 12th
B - 11th
Julia - 10th
Max - 9th
Leshawna - 8th
MERGE
Jo - 7th
Duncan - 6th
Ella - 5th
Sammy - 4th
Scarlett - 3rd
Zee - 2nd
Harold - 1st
2024.05.20 02:21 xtremexavier15 TMPI 13
Boys: Harold, Zee
Episode 13: Lies, Cries, and One Big Prize
"Previously, on Total Drama. Zee, Scarlett, and Harold created their own challenges!"
"Zee went with balancing, which bit big time for Scarlett and gave Harold the shock of his life."
"Harold's treetop race was more entertaining than a sawing monkey. Surprisingly, Scarlett won the challenge, and Harold fell from grace and the trees."
"So, it all came down to Scarlett's challenge: a trivia challenge about the former competitors. Zee didn't have too good a start, but quickly earned himself a spot in the finale."
"It all came down to a final question, and one that Scarlett ironically got wrong. Bye-bye!"
The montage ended with a flash, showing a close-up of Chris in front of a bare rock wall. "Down to two from three," he said, holding up three fingers but lowering one of them, "cause now we're Scarlett-free. But," he lowered another finger, "it'll still be neat to see who gets beat," he punched his open palm. "So! Grab a seat. There's one million bucks on the line," the shot cut to a robotic arm lifting up the open suitcase full of prize money against a radiant orange-and-gold background. "Iiiiiit's finale time!" Chris said as the shot cut back to him.
"On Total! Drama! Paaaaaahkitew Island!"
(Theme Song)
A deep note played as the episode opened on the bunker, the sky dark and the crickets chirping. A deep sigh issued forth from it, and the camera soon cut inside to show Harold tossing and turning in his bed. He got up and grabbed a pillow from the bed above him and closed his eyes with a smile, only to open them and sigh again.
Confessional: Harold
"It's no use," Harold sighed in the confessional. "I just can't get to sleep. I'm too anxious about tomorrow. I don't know if Zee is having the same trouble as I am..."
“It’d be cool if I win the last challenge. Just think about how much better my life would be. No more wedgies, wet willies, and toilet face plunges, my peers would respect me more as a million dollar winner, and I can invest the money in a way that’ll make me more than the show has to afford.”
Confessional Ends
The static cut away to show Harold turning his back to the camera with another sigh, then the shot cut to the inside of the barn to show Zee sleeping peacefully and snoring rather loudly.
Confessional: Zee
"This is a high stress situation, but I’m able to get some rest in order to ease it," Zee explained. "Even if it’s a million dollar competition against Harold."
Confessional Ends
An angelic sound played as the shot returned to a close-up of Harold, his eyes blinking blearily to sleep as the light of dawn streamed in through a window high on the wall above him.
Just as he and the music seemed to reach a peaceful rest, the wail of an airhorn pierced the walls and forced Harold back into wakefulness, his eyes snapping open wide and bloodshot. "Harold and Zee," Chris announced over the camp loudspeakers, the screen splitting in two with a shot of the good vibe guy blearily waking up sliding in on the left. "Meeting area, now!"
The scene flashed to Zee and Harold standing before Chris in the open meeting area. "Yes! Today, I fire one of you from a cannon," he greeted excitedly. "And then start my vacation."
"Plus you'll hand one of us a million dollars," Harold added with a grin.
"I haven't forgotten, dude," Chris said in annoyance. "I'm just focusing on the parts that bring me the most joy. Okay?"
"What's the challenge?" Zee asked. "Is it physical or have you decided on something else?"
Harold grinned. "Total Drama finales are always physical," he said. "And while I am classified as a brain, I'm afraid I have more fighting skills than you."
"Don't get too overconfident just yet," Zee warned. "I might surprise you."
"If I may continue?" Chris interrupted, his annoyed expression soon dropping. "Your final challenge is so demanding, the lawyers insisted each of you get a helper. Ehh," he shrugged, "it's not a horrible idea. I mean," the shot cut to the finalists as they watched him, "maybe they'll be able to help us find your bodies!" Zee and Harold shared a brief but wary look. "So, which of the past contestants would you like as a helper?" Chris asked, stepping over to them.
Confessional: Zee
"I'd prefer Julia," Zee told the outhouse camera. "She's really rad, and we work well together. But I wouldn't be too upset over having anybody else as a helper. Well, except for Scarlett."
Confessional: Harold
"It's no surprise that I'd prefer Leshawna over anyone else," Harold confessed. "She can handle her own battles and objectively speaking, she is the most physically attractive girl this season. I just wish that we were able to talk to each other before she left."
Confessionals End
"I choose Leshawna," Harold said with a smile as the static cut away and a triumphant tune played...for a few brief moments.
Chris chuckled. "'Choose'?" he repeated, laughing again. "Nooo, no no no no no no no...," he told the finalists.
"But you just asked us-," Zee pointed out in confusion.
"I know," Chris conceded, "I asked you who you wanted, I did that to be mean." He laughed again as the sound of squeaky wheels approached. "Your helpers-" the camera pulled back to show Chef pushing a large widescreen monitor up to the host on a cart- "will be selected thusly! When you press this button," he held up a remote control with a single red button on it, "the possible helpers will flash across the screen." A game show jingle played as the shot cut to the monitor, now showing the portraits of the eliminated contestants rolling down across the screen as if on a reel. "Whoever's face it stops on, is your helper."
The reel stopped on an image of Scarlett after drinking Juggy Chunks. "What happens if we land on someone we don't want?" Harold asked.
"You each get one chance to pass and spin again," Chris answered with a wide grin as the sound of a helicopter grew louder. "And just to make things even more interesting," he added, growing more and more giddy with each moment, "I've brought all the helpers out to watch!"
"RELEASE ME, YOU CRETIN! I DEMAND IT!" shouted a familiar voice.
Harold and Zee gasped as the music spiked, and the shot cut to the same dual-rotor military helicopter that Chris and Chef had taken shelter in during the island's malfunctioning as it flew in overhead.
Then the camera panned downward to show the twelve eliminated campers dangling under it tied up in ropes – Max on the far left, then Amy, Sammy, Duncan, Ella, B, Lightning, Scarlett, Julia, DJ, Leshawna, and finally Jo on the far right.
"What's the big idea, McLean?!" Jo shouted hatefully, the shot cutting in close to her and Leshawna.
"Yeah," Leshawna chimed in, "why do I gotta be hanging next to her!" The two girls locked eyes and glared.
"I don't think that's the issue here..." DJ said, the camera panning onto him.
"I personally don't mind being tied up like this," Julia said in a positive tone, the camera pulling back to show her smiling. "I'm just happy to see my boyfriend in the finale."
"I didn't even want to show up, but I would appreciate it if I was actually seated," Scarlett said in a grumpy tone.
"Sha-yeah!" Lightning agreed as the camera panned onto him. "Chris, these ropes might cause Lightning some bruising. Can we get them loosened a bit?"
Scarlett gave Lightning an incredulous look. "You do realize that if the ropes are loosened, you'll fall?"
"Lightning will just get back up again," Lightning told her obliviously.
The camera cut back to B. It lingered on him for a few moments as he awkwardly looked from side to side, then directly at the camera as he smiled coolly.
"Despite this drastic situation we're in," Ella sang after the song panned to her, "I still want either Zee or Harold to win~!"
Another pan to the left showed Duncan watching her. "My money's on Harold," he said, shrugging.
“And how come?” Ella asked.
"Zee's cool and all, but I just know the dork better," Duncan answered.
"Really?" Geoff asked, raising a eyebrow in disbelief. "Are the shows in Jersey really that terrible to watch?"
"They are if ya don't have tickets!" Anne Maria answered happily.
Yet another pan put the focus on Amy and Sammy. "Are you still not going to apologize for how you've treated me ever since we were little?" Sammy asked.
"And why should I?" Amy replied in slight irritation.
"Because I put you in your place and pointed out your own flaws," Sammy explained. “The least you can do is be humble a bit.”
"You may have gotten further than me, but you still didn’t win the season," Amy bragged. “You're a bowl of mush, and I'm a parfait, which is French for perfect.”
“So what's French for bossy blonde cow?” Sammy taunted with a smirk. “I know! Vache blonde autoritaire!”
"You are so going to get it," Amy growled.
The camera pulled back to show Max clenching his eyes shut in pain. "Would you two identical ladies cease that annoying racket?!" he finally yelled with another force to startle Amy and Sammy into looking at him. "Thank y-" he began to say plainly before Amy smacked him in the head. "Hey!" he said, cringing at the hit.
"Okay," Chris said, the music turning slow and plodding as the camera cut back to him, Zee and Harold. "Now that the Peanut Gallery has had a chance to reintroduce themselves, let's move on."
"Whoa, hold on a minute," Zee held up a hand to interrupt. "Why? How? When?"
"Uh, you're gonna have to be a little more specific there," Chris told him, raising an eyebrow.
"He means why are they all tied up?" Harold translated.
Chris let out a long, irritated sigh. "Fine," he said. "I'm keeping them tied up and in plain sight so we don't have them float towards the sun, okay?"
"No," Harold said bluntly.
"Not really," Zee replied.
"Whatever," Chris told them, his brow creased in annoyance. His expression then changed into a smile. "Who goes first will be decided by a coin toss," he explained, taking out a coin and flipping it towards the campers.
It hit Zee in the eye. He yelped in pain, rubbing where he'd been hit.
"Zee wins!" Chris happily announced. "Let's see who you get," he said as the game show jingled played again.
The shot cut to a close-up of the monitor as the portraits began to scroll past, Zee uttering a series of grunts as she watched off-screen – some hopeful, some annoyed. "Okay, stop," he said after a few seconds, the camera moving to him as he pressed the button on his remote.
The simulated reel stopped on Jo. "Not who I wanted at all," Zee said in disappointment as a triumphant jingle played, "but I got what I got and I'm not gonna throw a fit."
"Harold," Chris said, the camera moving back to the finalists as the dweeb pursed his lips, "you're up."
The game show jingle played, and the portraits started flashing across the monitor again – until they stopped on Scarlett. "No..." Harold groaned.
Confessional: Harold
"I knew the odds of getting Leshawna were slim," Harold confessed. "But I want a helper who would actually assist me."
Confessional Ends
An odd note played as the shot cut back to Zee, Harold, and Chris, the latter two sharing a look. "I'd like to spin again," Harold said.
"Have at it," Chris replied, the shot briefly cutting to the pictures flashing across the monitor again.
Harold pressed the button, and sagged in defeat – and the camera cut to the monitor to show that it had landed on Scarlett again. The camera moved in front of Chris as he gave her a mischievous look. "Scarlett again?" he asked in fake shock. "What are the odds?"
The camera pulled back as Chris turned to the right and nodded at Chef, who returned the gesture and walked away. "Okay, looks like Zee gets Jo and Harold gets Scarlett," Chris said, nodding toward the helicopter. The ropes tied around the two chosen helpers abruptly came loose, causing both to fall, but while Scarlett landed in an awkward flop, Jo simply tucked her legs in and rolled as a light but triumphant tune played.
She got back onto her feet just as Zee walked up to her. "Hey Jo. I know we haven't gotten along-" Zee said.
"-but since we're partners, we're gonna have to try and tolerate each other," Jo replied. "Yeah, I know."
Confessional: Jo
"I'm not in the game any more, which still sucks," Jo explained. "But Chill Pill managed to subvert my expectations. He lasted longer than I thought he would have. And if I have to work with him, then so be it."
Confessional Ends
The camera panned to the right as Scarlett snorted and stood up. "I strongly refuse to partake in this," she said, the shot cutting in close as she brushed the dirt off her shirt then turned around.
She took a step, and walked right into Chef, who snickered and locked a thick metal collar around the quiet brainiac's neck.
"Let me guess. You're going to shock me if I don't play along, right?" Scarlett asked in annoyance as she tugged at the collar.
"You'd think that," Chris said with a mischievous smile, "but this is actually something different. In case you somehow ended up as one of the helpers, I had a special collar made that'll tranquilize you if you don't play along," he finished with a smug look.
Scarlett groaned in annoyance. "Fine."
"Hey, as long as you don't just bail, I'm cool," Chris told him.
"I'm not," Harold interrupted with an angry look.
Confessional: Scarlett
"Unless I want a voltage surprise like the ones I received in episode four," Scarlett told the confessional camera with disgust, idly tugging at the collar around her neck, "I'll help Harold with his goal of winning the one million dollars. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."
Confessional: Chris
"Am I full of good ideas or what?" Chris chuckled in the outhouse camera.
Confessionals End
"So," Chris said, the static cutting away to show him walking towards the two pairs. "Reunion's over? Good! It's time for your final challenge. I have endearingly titled it, 'The Double Duo of Deadly Dying Death'!" A dramatic spike in the music, reverberated voice, and zoomed-in and angled shot all combined to make the revealing of the title particularly dramatic.
"That sounds dangerous...," Zee said worryingly.
"It's supposed to be dangerous, Dodo Brain," Jo groaned.
Confessional: Zee
"Now I'm wishing I did use my second chance like Harold did," Zee confessed.
Confessional Ends
"Now since Blaineley snuck back onto the island and changed it completely by wreaking havoc in the secret underground control room..." Chris began to explain.
"Umm, hold on," came the voice of Julia, the camera panning back up to the still-loitering helicopter. "What did you just say?" she asked in confusion.
"Wait, you didn't know that?" Duncan asked. "I knew I was forgetting something."
"Host!" Max interrupted, drawing the focus to the other end of the line. "I demand you explain this!"
"No," Chris replied in a deadpan tone. "As I was saying," he continued, putting his bland smile back on as the background music became deep and tense, "we've yet to explore all the wonderful and bizarre new dangers the island's new landscape has to offer. Until now. Harold and Zee," the shot cut back to the two pairs, "with assistance from your helpers-" Zee and Jo shared a frown while Harold and Scarlett shared a glare - "you will race across the island. First one to cross the finish line will receive," Chris turned to the side and grabbed the prized suitcase from Chef, the music building up grandly as he opened it to reveal its glowing contents, "One! Millions! Dol-lars!"
All four teens started cheering.
"All you have to do is survive a 2000-foot plummet from an ice cliff," Chris joyously explained, the camera cutting to the slender peak of a snowy mountain before quick-panning away, "successfully learn to breathe while submerged in mud," the camera panned across a bubbling lake of mud before quick-panning away again, "and then sprint two miles across a wide-open field where," the shot now panned across a seemingly ordinary and empty field, "I'm absolutely sure no harm will come to you."
The shot cut back to the cast as Chris began to laugh raucously for an extended period of time. "The point I'm making," Chris said once he'd finally finished, "is that there's a decent chance you may not survive this."
Both finalists and helpers groaned warily. Then they were each tossed an orange helmet.
"For the first part of the challenge," Chris explained, "the lawyers insisted you wear helmets to protect your brains." The shot cut to him and Chef. "I mean who knows. Someday, you may start using them." The roar of the nearby helicopter suddenly increased, the added wind whipping up a cloud of dust around the men. "When you get to the top of the mountain, it'd be a good idea to build a bobsled," Chris instructed, "or, it'll be a very rough ride down!"
The show's smaller red helicopter was shown flying over, the larger military one flying away with the rest of the former campers still attached. "Grab a rope!" Chris said, the camera panning down the four ropes hanging from the helicopter to show them dangling just above the finalists and helpers. "Your challenge begins...NOW!"
The four grabbed the ropes in front of them, and to a sudden bit of challenge music and a blast of the host's airhorn, the helicopter flew off dragging the startled teens along with it.
"Good luck! Stay safe!" Chris called out after them. "Are things I'd say, if I cared!"
The footage flashed ahead to the top of the snowy peak, several boxes and barrels of various junk – including what looked like several sets of skis – already waiting at the top. The small helicopter arrived momentarily, and the shot cut to its four passengers landing in the show – Jo and Zee on the left, Scarlett and Harold on the right.
"We're supposed to build a bobsled out of this junk?" Jo asked in disbelief.
"No," Zee corrected as he grabbed a pair of skis, "Chris just said it would be a good idea." He tossed the skis onto the ground and stepped on them, a tense challenge tune playing in the background. "I have a different one, so hop on."
The shot cut to a close-up of Jo grinning, then to her jumping onto the skis behind Zee. "Let's do this!" she said as they began to slide forward down the slope and left the scene.
The camera panned onto Scarlett, holding a pair of skis of her own. "We should get moving!"
"What's to stop me from believing that you won't shove me off the skis?" Harold asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.
"I have this wretched collar on. Shoving you is the last thing I want to do. Now get on!" Scarlett told him angrily.
"Fine," Harold said, rolling his eyes and walking over to where Scarlett was already waiting on the skis and got ahead of her. The challenge music rose up again as they leaned forward, and started to slide.
The shot cut to Zee and Jo looking back over their shoulders with grins on their faces. They promptly skied through a tall mogul, slowing them down a little and covering Zee's eyes in snow. "I can't see!" he shouted, clawing at the packed snow as they began to swerve.
"Quick, to the left!" Jo shouted, one hand around Zee's waist and one point ahead of them as they swerved away from the camera around another mound of snow. "Now right!" Jo directed, the two swerving back towards the foreground. "Left!" She shouted, but they just sped through another mogul earning a scream from the jock-ette.
Confessional: Jo
Jo was blue from the cold and shivering heavily.
Confessional Ends
"Well isn't that the best thing that's happened today!" Scarlett taunted as the scene cut back to her and Harold.
"Yeah, well, we're gonna be next if we don't keep dodging these things," Harold pointed out as they began to swerve around the moguls as well. "And I want to try and get ahead of them while we can."
The music ramped up dangerously as the dweeb and brainiac slid towards another mogul. "Left!" Harold shouted.
"No, right!" Scarlett replied, the two leaning to the opposite direction, swerving nowhere, and plowing right through the mound. "Aagh!"
"Scarlett!" Harold growled as they started swerving wildly, snow covering both their eyes. They clipped the side of another mogul, sending themselves into a screaming spin, hit a third mogul, and came out tumbling end over end.
The shot cut to the bottom of the slope, the music leveling off as what looked like a mogul on skis slid down. The camera zoomed in as two patches of snow fell away to reveal Zee and Jo inside, the two moaning and blue in the face. "Zee, we need to move," Jo weakly told her partner, "before-"
A massive snowball suddenly ran them over, breaking the snow but leaving the good vibe guy and jock-ette lying in a puddle of melting snow. A crash was heard off-screen, but the camera lingered in place as Jo groaned and stood up. "Let's go," Jo told her partner. "You're still in this..."
"...yeah," Zee said as he caught his breath. "Yeah!" he said, more energetically this time. "I've got this!" he declared before charging forward, the shot cutting to Jo as she smirked softly then raced after her partner.
The camera followed them along for a few seconds until they reached a heap of snow, skis, and dazed-looking teens, which the shot immediately focused on. "What happened?" Harold shot at his partner, the dweeb lying upside-down half-trapped in the snow. "I told you to go left!"
"And I told you to go right!" Scarlett countered, her head sticking out the right way up but her legs sticking out over it.
"Yes, but I'm the one in charge!" Harold replied. "You're supposed to be helping me!"
"I was steering!" Scarlett said before the snow holding her up crumbled away, causing her to fall over with a startled gasp.
Harold sighed in aggravation before a small pile of melting snow collapsed onto his face.
The scene cut away to show Chris and Chef sitting in lawn chairs eating popcorn as they watched the challenge feed, the host promptly pausing it with a beep and looking at the camera. "This finale's out of control!" he said excitedly as the capstone theme began to play. "Zee and Jo got run over! Harold and Scarlett can't stop arguing! And all of them just plowed through like a ton of snow!"
"Stay tuned, "he continued, the shot moving away but the host quickly popping back up in front of it. "Someone is leaving here a millionaire. It's the finale of Total! Drama! Paaaaaahkitew Island!"
(Commercial Break)
submitted by xtremexavier15 to u/xtremexavier15 [link] [comments]
Episode 13: Lies, Cries, and One Big Prize
"Previously, on Total Drama. Zee, Scarlett, and Harold created their own challenges!"
"Zee went with balancing, which bit big time for Scarlett and gave Harold the shock of his life."
"Harold's treetop race was more entertaining than a sawing monkey. Surprisingly, Scarlett won the challenge, and Harold fell from grace and the trees."
"So, it all came down to Scarlett's challenge: a trivia challenge about the former competitors. Zee didn't have too good a start, but quickly earned himself a spot in the finale."
"It all came down to a final question, and one that Scarlett ironically got wrong. Bye-bye!"
The montage ended with a flash, showing a close-up of Chris in front of a bare rock wall. "Down to two from three," he said, holding up three fingers but lowering one of them, "cause now we're Scarlett-free. But," he lowered another finger, "it'll still be neat to see who gets beat," he punched his open palm. "So! Grab a seat. There's one million bucks on the line," the shot cut to a robotic arm lifting up the open suitcase full of prize money against a radiant orange-and-gold background. "Iiiiiit's finale time!" Chris said as the shot cut back to him.
"On Total! Drama! Paaaaaahkitew Island!"
(Theme Song)
A deep note played as the episode opened on the bunker, the sky dark and the crickets chirping. A deep sigh issued forth from it, and the camera soon cut inside to show Harold tossing and turning in his bed. He got up and grabbed a pillow from the bed above him and closed his eyes with a smile, only to open them and sigh again.
Confessional: Harold
"It's no use," Harold sighed in the confessional. "I just can't get to sleep. I'm too anxious about tomorrow. I don't know if Zee is having the same trouble as I am..."
“It’d be cool if I win the last challenge. Just think about how much better my life would be. No more wedgies, wet willies, and toilet face plunges, my peers would respect me more as a million dollar winner, and I can invest the money in a way that’ll make me more than the show has to afford.”
Confessional Ends
The static cut away to show Harold turning his back to the camera with another sigh, then the shot cut to the inside of the barn to show Zee sleeping peacefully and snoring rather loudly.
Confessional: Zee
"This is a high stress situation, but I’m able to get some rest in order to ease it," Zee explained. "Even if it’s a million dollar competition against Harold."
Confessional Ends
An angelic sound played as the shot returned to a close-up of Harold, his eyes blinking blearily to sleep as the light of dawn streamed in through a window high on the wall above him.
Just as he and the music seemed to reach a peaceful rest, the wail of an airhorn pierced the walls and forced Harold back into wakefulness, his eyes snapping open wide and bloodshot. "Harold and Zee," Chris announced over the camp loudspeakers, the screen splitting in two with a shot of the good vibe guy blearily waking up sliding in on the left. "Meeting area, now!"
The scene flashed to Zee and Harold standing before Chris in the open meeting area. "Yes! Today, I fire one of you from a cannon," he greeted excitedly. "And then start my vacation."
"Plus you'll hand one of us a million dollars," Harold added with a grin.
"I haven't forgotten, dude," Chris said in annoyance. "I'm just focusing on the parts that bring me the most joy. Okay?"
"What's the challenge?" Zee asked. "Is it physical or have you decided on something else?"
Harold grinned. "Total Drama finales are always physical," he said. "And while I am classified as a brain, I'm afraid I have more fighting skills than you."
"Don't get too overconfident just yet," Zee warned. "I might surprise you."
"If I may continue?" Chris interrupted, his annoyed expression soon dropping. "Your final challenge is so demanding, the lawyers insisted each of you get a helper. Ehh," he shrugged, "it's not a horrible idea. I mean," the shot cut to the finalists as they watched him, "maybe they'll be able to help us find your bodies!" Zee and Harold shared a brief but wary look. "So, which of the past contestants would you like as a helper?" Chris asked, stepping over to them.
Confessional: Zee
"I'd prefer Julia," Zee told the outhouse camera. "She's really rad, and we work well together. But I wouldn't be too upset over having anybody else as a helper. Well, except for Scarlett."
Confessional: Harold
"It's no surprise that I'd prefer Leshawna over anyone else," Harold confessed. "She can handle her own battles and objectively speaking, she is the most physically attractive girl this season. I just wish that we were able to talk to each other before she left."
Confessionals End
"I choose Leshawna," Harold said with a smile as the static cut away and a triumphant tune played...for a few brief moments.
Chris chuckled. "'Choose'?" he repeated, laughing again. "Nooo, no no no no no no no...," he told the finalists.
"But you just asked us-," Zee pointed out in confusion.
"I know," Chris conceded, "I asked you who you wanted, I did that to be mean." He laughed again as the sound of squeaky wheels approached. "Your helpers-" the camera pulled back to show Chef pushing a large widescreen monitor up to the host on a cart- "will be selected thusly! When you press this button," he held up a remote control with a single red button on it, "the possible helpers will flash across the screen." A game show jingle played as the shot cut to the monitor, now showing the portraits of the eliminated contestants rolling down across the screen as if on a reel. "Whoever's face it stops on, is your helper."
The reel stopped on an image of Scarlett after drinking Juggy Chunks. "What happens if we land on someone we don't want?" Harold asked.
"You each get one chance to pass and spin again," Chris answered with a wide grin as the sound of a helicopter grew louder. "And just to make things even more interesting," he added, growing more and more giddy with each moment, "I've brought all the helpers out to watch!"
"RELEASE ME, YOU CRETIN! I DEMAND IT!" shouted a familiar voice.
Harold and Zee gasped as the music spiked, and the shot cut to the same dual-rotor military helicopter that Chris and Chef had taken shelter in during the island's malfunctioning as it flew in overhead.
Then the camera panned downward to show the twelve eliminated campers dangling under it tied up in ropes – Max on the far left, then Amy, Sammy, Duncan, Ella, B, Lightning, Scarlett, Julia, DJ, Leshawna, and finally Jo on the far right.
"What's the big idea, McLean?!" Jo shouted hatefully, the shot cutting in close to her and Leshawna.
"Yeah," Leshawna chimed in, "why do I gotta be hanging next to her!" The two girls locked eyes and glared.
"I don't think that's the issue here..." DJ said, the camera panning onto him.
"I personally don't mind being tied up like this," Julia said in a positive tone, the camera pulling back to show her smiling. "I'm just happy to see my boyfriend in the finale."
"I didn't even want to show up, but I would appreciate it if I was actually seated," Scarlett said in a grumpy tone.
"Sha-yeah!" Lightning agreed as the camera panned onto him. "Chris, these ropes might cause Lightning some bruising. Can we get them loosened a bit?"
Scarlett gave Lightning an incredulous look. "You do realize that if the ropes are loosened, you'll fall?"
"Lightning will just get back up again," Lightning told her obliviously.
The camera cut back to B. It lingered on him for a few moments as he awkwardly looked from side to side, then directly at the camera as he smiled coolly.
"Despite this drastic situation we're in," Ella sang after the song panned to her, "I still want either Zee or Harold to win~!"
Another pan to the left showed Duncan watching her. "My money's on Harold," he said, shrugging.
“And how come?” Ella asked.
"Zee's cool and all, but I just know the dork better," Duncan answered.
"Really?" Geoff asked, raising a eyebrow in disbelief. "Are the shows in Jersey really that terrible to watch?"
"They are if ya don't have tickets!" Anne Maria answered happily.
Yet another pan put the focus on Amy and Sammy. "Are you still not going to apologize for how you've treated me ever since we were little?" Sammy asked.
"And why should I?" Amy replied in slight irritation.
"Because I put you in your place and pointed out your own flaws," Sammy explained. “The least you can do is be humble a bit.”
"You may have gotten further than me, but you still didn’t win the season," Amy bragged. “You're a bowl of mush, and I'm a parfait, which is French for perfect.”
“So what's French for bossy blonde cow?” Sammy taunted with a smirk. “I know! Vache blonde autoritaire!”
"You are so going to get it," Amy growled.
The camera pulled back to show Max clenching his eyes shut in pain. "Would you two identical ladies cease that annoying racket?!" he finally yelled with another force to startle Amy and Sammy into looking at him. "Thank y-" he began to say plainly before Amy smacked him in the head. "Hey!" he said, cringing at the hit.
"Okay," Chris said, the music turning slow and plodding as the camera cut back to him, Zee and Harold. "Now that the Peanut Gallery has had a chance to reintroduce themselves, let's move on."
"Whoa, hold on a minute," Zee held up a hand to interrupt. "Why? How? When?"
"Uh, you're gonna have to be a little more specific there," Chris told him, raising an eyebrow.
"He means why are they all tied up?" Harold translated.
Chris let out a long, irritated sigh. "Fine," he said. "I'm keeping them tied up and in plain sight so we don't have them float towards the sun, okay?"
"No," Harold said bluntly.
"Not really," Zee replied.
"Whatever," Chris told them, his brow creased in annoyance. His expression then changed into a smile. "Who goes first will be decided by a coin toss," he explained, taking out a coin and flipping it towards the campers.
It hit Zee in the eye. He yelped in pain, rubbing where he'd been hit.
"Zee wins!" Chris happily announced. "Let's see who you get," he said as the game show jingled played again.
The shot cut to a close-up of the monitor as the portraits began to scroll past, Zee uttering a series of grunts as she watched off-screen – some hopeful, some annoyed. "Okay, stop," he said after a few seconds, the camera moving to him as he pressed the button on his remote.
The simulated reel stopped on Jo. "Not who I wanted at all," Zee said in disappointment as a triumphant jingle played, "but I got what I got and I'm not gonna throw a fit."
"Harold," Chris said, the camera moving back to the finalists as the dweeb pursed his lips, "you're up."
The game show jingle played, and the portraits started flashing across the monitor again – until they stopped on Scarlett. "No..." Harold groaned.
Confessional: Harold
"I knew the odds of getting Leshawna were slim," Harold confessed. "But I want a helper who would actually assist me."
Confessional Ends
An odd note played as the shot cut back to Zee, Harold, and Chris, the latter two sharing a look. "I'd like to spin again," Harold said.
"Have at it," Chris replied, the shot briefly cutting to the pictures flashing across the monitor again.
Harold pressed the button, and sagged in defeat – and the camera cut to the monitor to show that it had landed on Scarlett again. The camera moved in front of Chris as he gave her a mischievous look. "Scarlett again?" he asked in fake shock. "What are the odds?"
The camera pulled back as Chris turned to the right and nodded at Chef, who returned the gesture and walked away. "Okay, looks like Zee gets Jo and Harold gets Scarlett," Chris said, nodding toward the helicopter. The ropes tied around the two chosen helpers abruptly came loose, causing both to fall, but while Scarlett landed in an awkward flop, Jo simply tucked her legs in and rolled as a light but triumphant tune played.
She got back onto her feet just as Zee walked up to her. "Hey Jo. I know we haven't gotten along-" Zee said.
"-but since we're partners, we're gonna have to try and tolerate each other," Jo replied. "Yeah, I know."
Confessional: Jo
"I'm not in the game any more, which still sucks," Jo explained. "But Chill Pill managed to subvert my expectations. He lasted longer than I thought he would have. And if I have to work with him, then so be it."
Confessional Ends
The camera panned to the right as Scarlett snorted and stood up. "I strongly refuse to partake in this," she said, the shot cutting in close as she brushed the dirt off her shirt then turned around.
She took a step, and walked right into Chef, who snickered and locked a thick metal collar around the quiet brainiac's neck.
"Let me guess. You're going to shock me if I don't play along, right?" Scarlett asked in annoyance as she tugged at the collar.
"You'd think that," Chris said with a mischievous smile, "but this is actually something different. In case you somehow ended up as one of the helpers, I had a special collar made that'll tranquilize you if you don't play along," he finished with a smug look.
Scarlett groaned in annoyance. "Fine."
"Hey, as long as you don't just bail, I'm cool," Chris told him.
"I'm not," Harold interrupted with an angry look.
Confessional: Scarlett
"Unless I want a voltage surprise like the ones I received in episode four," Scarlett told the confessional camera with disgust, idly tugging at the collar around her neck, "I'll help Harold with his goal of winning the one million dollars. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."
Confessional: Chris
"Am I full of good ideas or what?" Chris chuckled in the outhouse camera.
Confessionals End
"So," Chris said, the static cutting away to show him walking towards the two pairs. "Reunion's over? Good! It's time for your final challenge. I have endearingly titled it, 'The Double Duo of Deadly Dying Death'!" A dramatic spike in the music, reverberated voice, and zoomed-in and angled shot all combined to make the revealing of the title particularly dramatic.
"That sounds dangerous...," Zee said worryingly.
"It's supposed to be dangerous, Dodo Brain," Jo groaned.
Confessional: Zee
"Now I'm wishing I did use my second chance like Harold did," Zee confessed.
Confessional Ends
"Now since Blaineley snuck back onto the island and changed it completely by wreaking havoc in the secret underground control room..." Chris began to explain.
"Umm, hold on," came the voice of Julia, the camera panning back up to the still-loitering helicopter. "What did you just say?" she asked in confusion.
"Wait, you didn't know that?" Duncan asked. "I knew I was forgetting something."
"Host!" Max interrupted, drawing the focus to the other end of the line. "I demand you explain this!"
"No," Chris replied in a deadpan tone. "As I was saying," he continued, putting his bland smile back on as the background music became deep and tense, "we've yet to explore all the wonderful and bizarre new dangers the island's new landscape has to offer. Until now. Harold and Zee," the shot cut back to the two pairs, "with assistance from your helpers-" Zee and Jo shared a frown while Harold and Scarlett shared a glare - "you will race across the island. First one to cross the finish line will receive," Chris turned to the side and grabbed the prized suitcase from Chef, the music building up grandly as he opened it to reveal its glowing contents, "One! Millions! Dol-lars!"
All four teens started cheering.
"All you have to do is survive a 2000-foot plummet from an ice cliff," Chris joyously explained, the camera cutting to the slender peak of a snowy mountain before quick-panning away, "successfully learn to breathe while submerged in mud," the camera panned across a bubbling lake of mud before quick-panning away again, "and then sprint two miles across a wide-open field where," the shot now panned across a seemingly ordinary and empty field, "I'm absolutely sure no harm will come to you."
The shot cut back to the cast as Chris began to laugh raucously for an extended period of time. "The point I'm making," Chris said once he'd finally finished, "is that there's a decent chance you may not survive this."
Both finalists and helpers groaned warily. Then they were each tossed an orange helmet.
"For the first part of the challenge," Chris explained, "the lawyers insisted you wear helmets to protect your brains." The shot cut to him and Chef. "I mean who knows. Someday, you may start using them." The roar of the nearby helicopter suddenly increased, the added wind whipping up a cloud of dust around the men. "When you get to the top of the mountain, it'd be a good idea to build a bobsled," Chris instructed, "or, it'll be a very rough ride down!"
The show's smaller red helicopter was shown flying over, the larger military one flying away with the rest of the former campers still attached. "Grab a rope!" Chris said, the camera panning down the four ropes hanging from the helicopter to show them dangling just above the finalists and helpers. "Your challenge begins...NOW!"
The four grabbed the ropes in front of them, and to a sudden bit of challenge music and a blast of the host's airhorn, the helicopter flew off dragging the startled teens along with it.
"Good luck! Stay safe!" Chris called out after them. "Are things I'd say, if I cared!"
The footage flashed ahead to the top of the snowy peak, several boxes and barrels of various junk – including what looked like several sets of skis – already waiting at the top. The small helicopter arrived momentarily, and the shot cut to its four passengers landing in the show – Jo and Zee on the left, Scarlett and Harold on the right.
"We're supposed to build a bobsled out of this junk?" Jo asked in disbelief.
"No," Zee corrected as he grabbed a pair of skis, "Chris just said it would be a good idea." He tossed the skis onto the ground and stepped on them, a tense challenge tune playing in the background. "I have a different one, so hop on."
The shot cut to a close-up of Jo grinning, then to her jumping onto the skis behind Zee. "Let's do this!" she said as they began to slide forward down the slope and left the scene.
The camera panned onto Scarlett, holding a pair of skis of her own. "We should get moving!"
"What's to stop me from believing that you won't shove me off the skis?" Harold asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow.
"I have this wretched collar on. Shoving you is the last thing I want to do. Now get on!" Scarlett told him angrily.
"Fine," Harold said, rolling his eyes and walking over to where Scarlett was already waiting on the skis and got ahead of her. The challenge music rose up again as they leaned forward, and started to slide.
The shot cut to Zee and Jo looking back over their shoulders with grins on their faces. They promptly skied through a tall mogul, slowing them down a little and covering Zee's eyes in snow. "I can't see!" he shouted, clawing at the packed snow as they began to swerve.
"Quick, to the left!" Jo shouted, one hand around Zee's waist and one point ahead of them as they swerved away from the camera around another mound of snow. "Now right!" Jo directed, the two swerving back towards the foreground. "Left!" She shouted, but they just sped through another mogul earning a scream from the jock-ette.
Confessional: Jo
Jo was blue from the cold and shivering heavily.
Confessional Ends
"Well isn't that the best thing that's happened today!" Scarlett taunted as the scene cut back to her and Harold.
"Yeah, well, we're gonna be next if we don't keep dodging these things," Harold pointed out as they began to swerve around the moguls as well. "And I want to try and get ahead of them while we can."
The music ramped up dangerously as the dweeb and brainiac slid towards another mogul. "Left!" Harold shouted.
"No, right!" Scarlett replied, the two leaning to the opposite direction, swerving nowhere, and plowing right through the mound. "Aagh!"
"Scarlett!" Harold growled as they started swerving wildly, snow covering both their eyes. They clipped the side of another mogul, sending themselves into a screaming spin, hit a third mogul, and came out tumbling end over end.
The shot cut to the bottom of the slope, the music leveling off as what looked like a mogul on skis slid down. The camera zoomed in as two patches of snow fell away to reveal Zee and Jo inside, the two moaning and blue in the face. "Zee, we need to move," Jo weakly told her partner, "before-"
A massive snowball suddenly ran them over, breaking the snow but leaving the good vibe guy and jock-ette lying in a puddle of melting snow. A crash was heard off-screen, but the camera lingered in place as Jo groaned and stood up. "Let's go," Jo told her partner. "You're still in this..."
"...yeah," Zee said as he caught his breath. "Yeah!" he said, more energetically this time. "I've got this!" he declared before charging forward, the shot cutting to Jo as she smirked softly then raced after her partner.
The camera followed them along for a few seconds until they reached a heap of snow, skis, and dazed-looking teens, which the shot immediately focused on. "What happened?" Harold shot at his partner, the dweeb lying upside-down half-trapped in the snow. "I told you to go left!"
"And I told you to go right!" Scarlett countered, her head sticking out the right way up but her legs sticking out over it.
"Yes, but I'm the one in charge!" Harold replied. "You're supposed to be helping me!"
"I was steering!" Scarlett said before the snow holding her up crumbled away, causing her to fall over with a startled gasp.
Harold sighed in aggravation before a small pile of melting snow collapsed onto his face.
The scene cut away to show Chris and Chef sitting in lawn chairs eating popcorn as they watched the challenge feed, the host promptly pausing it with a beep and looking at the camera. "This finale's out of control!" he said excitedly as the capstone theme began to play. "Zee and Jo got run over! Harold and Scarlett can't stop arguing! And all of them just plowed through like a ton of snow!"
"Stay tuned, "he continued, the shot moving away but the host quickly popping back up in front of it. "Someone is leaving here a millionaire. It's the finale of Total! Drama! Paaaaaahkitew Island!"
(Commercial Break)
2024.05.20 02:14 titanlmao A review of the Pyro video abt Kendrick vs Drake and (almost) everything he got wrong
i’m a diehard hip hop fan, more specifically Kendrick, so most of this stuff I know by heart so why not make a post pointing out EVERY SINGLE wrong thing i can catch Pyro say. Im mostly making this since it pisses me off when people who have zero clue about something come in and try to sound confident as hell about it while getting countless things wrong. I will try to link proper sources for everything he got wrong as well. Enjoy! By the way when I say Dot it is Kendrick I’m talking about. And I will also put the time stamps of what i’m talking about
Also if i got something wrong please correct me so I can edit it. Most everything here should be correct however
First off and it isn’t Pyro, it’s Critikal, but talking about how youtubers in 2016 ruined diss tracks and Dot vs Drake is the first beef since then to make real diss tracks is so funny because Pusha T vs Drake happened in 2018 I believe so just goes to show how in touch they are
Okay once again something petty , it’s small but it kinda shows how much research was done from the get go, because Kendrick’s real name isn’t Kendrick Lamar, It is Kendrick Duckworth, Lamar is just his middle name. So it kinda shows the research level when you can’t get the dudes name right when you’re supposed to be saying the full name of both dudes.
4:50
Claim - Drake came from nothing thus Drake flexes money
Okay so this is the first major one I think. Drake did not come from nothing, he grew up in rich neighborhoods, more specifically Forest Hill in Toronto. Not to mention his father’s side of the family had many successful musicians. He grew up rich. This is why people dislike Drake as he tends to go on his records rapping about the hard hoods and shit like this when he grew up infinitely more wealthy than most other rappers.
5:05
Claim - Kendrick does not like Drake as he flexes too much
Not even close. The actual origin of their beef is said to come from Kendrick’s legendary verse on Control. It is said that after Kendrick made his verse Drake felt very disrespected and thus attempted to blacklist kendrick from various radio stations which didn’t work. Kendrick felt that Drake took the verse too personally when Kendrick was just being competitive(it is vital to note that every other artist Kendrick mentioned ignore it or praised him for it). And eventually the animosity just kept ramping up as many people began to perceive drake as a culture vulture due to the fact he’d rap about stuff such as hard life in the streets or gangs despite never growing up around that only because it was trendy at that time. Which funnily enough is what pyro is doing right now, he’s culture vulturing off the beef since it’ll give him money but doesn’t really care
6:00-8:00
I don’t see why bring up Pusha T vs Drake as this isn’t that relevant to the Dot beef. Not to mention he just skips over 90% of things said in the beef. But yea it’s not Adoeniss lmao.
8:15
Okay so that wasn’t a diss track. That’s a sneak diss, something very big to distinguish as in the hip hop community sneak disses are seen as a pussies way to start beef while trying not to. this is especially relevant to drake as one of the biggest criticism of drake is how often he sneak disses rappers. to the point dot himself mentioned it in one of the diss tracks. Also tory le ness. also again i don’t see why bring this up as it is not relevant to the Dot beef. It wasn’t even a beef in the first place megan never fired back nor did drake even say her name. just feels like padding runtime
9:15- 9:30
Why is bigfoot being brought up at all it is not relevant, i’ve said it like three time but it really isn’t you can skip over all this and not have missed a single thing
10:05
Claim - Megan’s law line is about drake
It isn’t, this is the line that kickstarted the nicki beef. Nicki’s husband and i think brother are both sex offenders, Megan’s line about Megan’s law references a law in america where it is required for the police to make a sex offenders information public. Maybe it can be about drake but it almost unanimously agreed it’s about nicki. Okay so i listened to everything he said, basically the same I said. So yea it’s probably not about drake only reason people think it is is because kendrick called him a predator
14:03
Metros booming track? For all the scary dogs? what? Everything else he said seems accurate however. He didn’t mention the prince and jackson line though which was specifically at drake
16:30
No, GKMC was the classic he was talking about. The actual line would be the classic is GKMC, the overhyped is TPAB and the prime was DAMN. This is the only one that makes sense as not many people see section 80 as a classic whereas GKMC is seen as the first of the four run classics by Kendrick. Also good kid and Maad City
21:14
They weren’t directly involved but essentially Drake was saying that all the dudes I collab with clear you because of me. And that you’re not even the biggest in your own label, cus I think him and SZA were both top dawg. Pyro also doesn’t mention the push up and give me 50 line despite being the fucking chorus
21:48
That’s not it? At all? What Rick ross was trying to say is that Drake is so insecure about his own music that he had to “leak” the song in order to see if the public liked it enough for him to officially release it
22:20
That’s not what he claimed at all either. The nose job thing is not about not giving credit to his mentors, it’s about how Drake is seen as confused about his race and how he never felt black enough and that he isn’t black enough. Pusha and Dot tackled the same thing head on. Hell Dot literally ended Euphoria by saying Drake shouldn’t say the n word no more. It’s nothing abt giving credit rather adding on to the fake narrative that’s chased Drake his whole career
23:35
Thats part but not the only reason. He used the voice of the most iconic west side rapper ever to diss and make fun of tue current best west side rapper. This is why that became so controversial among the hip hop community, which he doesn’t mention. Because it’s corny to use the voice of a dead man to diss a dude who’s seen as the protege of Tupac and the current rep of the west coast.
25:48
It’s small but hearing Pyro act like DMX is just “some random rapper that passed away that said the same thing” is so annoying. Like bro isn’t a legendary rapper himself. It’s the equivalent of saying “oh yea and this interview of this one boxer, Mike Tyson idk if yk him, said the same shit”
26:13
No he isn’t saying that because Drake isn’t an activist he’s saying that because of the fact that Drake grew up super wealthy, but likes to act and pretend like he had a hard up bringing. The black enough just comes form the way Drake is perceived as a culture vulture who likes to pretend to live a life he didn’t.
29:33
Most people don’t care about writers. Kanye is a legendary rapper and he was well known for having writers in his track. The problem comes from when you attempt to portray yourself as an incredible writer when in reality you have 20 dudes doing it and you ignore that part. What makes it funnier is that Kendrick actually mentioned this in Euphoria I believe with the “It’s 1v20 with all the writers”. Essentially it’s the same as an athlete taking steroids but pushing himself as clean. Just makes you feel fake, which again is the main narrative around drake
31:00
Thing is that it wasn’t just his son, he literally addresses each family member, including his father. Also the predator line is referencing his father, and also Baka who’s an actual sex offender, so idk why mention that but not mention who it is he’s talking abt
Okay, so I think that’s it. Pyro weirdly left out vital parts of the beef such as how Drake was constantly alluding to Dots wife cheating with the bodyguard. Or other stuff like that. Or just not explaining certain bars and what they mean when it’s like 20 seconds at most. Or why some backlash occurred or like leaving certain things that can paint a picture of why Drake lost which is what he’s attempting to do. Such as him leaving out the fact that the Tupac part got backlash because of the west coast connection. Or how Drake isn’t critiqued for flexing but rather pretending to live a life he never did just because it’s trendy
In other words it just sounds like a white dude who’s never even listened to one song by either artist trying to make money off of it. Stick to Sunnyv2 and inflated furry porn pyro.
submitted by titanlmao to pyrocynical [link] [comments]
Also if i got something wrong please correct me so I can edit it. Most everything here should be correct however
First off and it isn’t Pyro, it’s Critikal, but talking about how youtubers in 2016 ruined diss tracks and Dot vs Drake is the first beef since then to make real diss tracks is so funny because Pusha T vs Drake happened in 2018 I believe so just goes to show how in touch they are
Okay once again something petty , it’s small but it kinda shows how much research was done from the get go, because Kendrick’s real name isn’t Kendrick Lamar, It is Kendrick Duckworth, Lamar is just his middle name. So it kinda shows the research level when you can’t get the dudes name right when you’re supposed to be saying the full name of both dudes.
4:50
Claim - Drake came from nothing thus Drake flexes money
Okay so this is the first major one I think. Drake did not come from nothing, he grew up in rich neighborhoods, more specifically Forest Hill in Toronto. Not to mention his father’s side of the family had many successful musicians. He grew up rich. This is why people dislike Drake as he tends to go on his records rapping about the hard hoods and shit like this when he grew up infinitely more wealthy than most other rappers.
5:05
Claim - Kendrick does not like Drake as he flexes too much
Not even close. The actual origin of their beef is said to come from Kendrick’s legendary verse on Control. It is said that after Kendrick made his verse Drake felt very disrespected and thus attempted to blacklist kendrick from various radio stations which didn’t work. Kendrick felt that Drake took the verse too personally when Kendrick was just being competitive(it is vital to note that every other artist Kendrick mentioned ignore it or praised him for it). And eventually the animosity just kept ramping up as many people began to perceive drake as a culture vulture due to the fact he’d rap about stuff such as hard life in the streets or gangs despite never growing up around that only because it was trendy at that time. Which funnily enough is what pyro is doing right now, he’s culture vulturing off the beef since it’ll give him money but doesn’t really care
6:00-8:00
I don’t see why bring up Pusha T vs Drake as this isn’t that relevant to the Dot beef. Not to mention he just skips over 90% of things said in the beef. But yea it’s not Adoeniss lmao.
8:15
Okay so that wasn’t a diss track. That’s a sneak diss, something very big to distinguish as in the hip hop community sneak disses are seen as a pussies way to start beef while trying not to. this is especially relevant to drake as one of the biggest criticism of drake is how often he sneak disses rappers. to the point dot himself mentioned it in one of the diss tracks. Also tory le ness. also again i don’t see why bring this up as it is not relevant to the Dot beef. It wasn’t even a beef in the first place megan never fired back nor did drake even say her name. just feels like padding runtime
9:15- 9:30
Why is bigfoot being brought up at all it is not relevant, i’ve said it like three time but it really isn’t you can skip over all this and not have missed a single thing
10:05
Claim - Megan’s law line is about drake
It isn’t, this is the line that kickstarted the nicki beef. Nicki’s husband and i think brother are both sex offenders, Megan’s line about Megan’s law references a law in america where it is required for the police to make a sex offenders information public. Maybe it can be about drake but it almost unanimously agreed it’s about nicki. Okay so i listened to everything he said, basically the same I said. So yea it’s probably not about drake only reason people think it is is because kendrick called him a predator
14:03
Metros booming track? For all the scary dogs? what? Everything else he said seems accurate however. He didn’t mention the prince and jackson line though which was specifically at drake
16:30
No, GKMC was the classic he was talking about. The actual line would be the classic is GKMC, the overhyped is TPAB and the prime was DAMN. This is the only one that makes sense as not many people see section 80 as a classic whereas GKMC is seen as the first of the four run classics by Kendrick. Also good kid and Maad City
21:14
They weren’t directly involved but essentially Drake was saying that all the dudes I collab with clear you because of me. And that you’re not even the biggest in your own label, cus I think him and SZA were both top dawg. Pyro also doesn’t mention the push up and give me 50 line despite being the fucking chorus
21:48
That’s not it? At all? What Rick ross was trying to say is that Drake is so insecure about his own music that he had to “leak” the song in order to see if the public liked it enough for him to officially release it
22:20
That’s not what he claimed at all either. The nose job thing is not about not giving credit to his mentors, it’s about how Drake is seen as confused about his race and how he never felt black enough and that he isn’t black enough. Pusha and Dot tackled the same thing head on. Hell Dot literally ended Euphoria by saying Drake shouldn’t say the n word no more. It’s nothing abt giving credit rather adding on to the fake narrative that’s chased Drake his whole career
23:35
Thats part but not the only reason. He used the voice of the most iconic west side rapper ever to diss and make fun of tue current best west side rapper. This is why that became so controversial among the hip hop community, which he doesn’t mention. Because it’s corny to use the voice of a dead man to diss a dude who’s seen as the protege of Tupac and the current rep of the west coast.
25:48
It’s small but hearing Pyro act like DMX is just “some random rapper that passed away that said the same thing” is so annoying. Like bro isn’t a legendary rapper himself. It’s the equivalent of saying “oh yea and this interview of this one boxer, Mike Tyson idk if yk him, said the same shit”
26:13
No he isn’t saying that because Drake isn’t an activist he’s saying that because of the fact that Drake grew up super wealthy, but likes to act and pretend like he had a hard up bringing. The black enough just comes form the way Drake is perceived as a culture vulture who likes to pretend to live a life he didn’t.
29:33
Most people don’t care about writers. Kanye is a legendary rapper and he was well known for having writers in his track. The problem comes from when you attempt to portray yourself as an incredible writer when in reality you have 20 dudes doing it and you ignore that part. What makes it funnier is that Kendrick actually mentioned this in Euphoria I believe with the “It’s 1v20 with all the writers”. Essentially it’s the same as an athlete taking steroids but pushing himself as clean. Just makes you feel fake, which again is the main narrative around drake
31:00
Thing is that it wasn’t just his son, he literally addresses each family member, including his father. Also the predator line is referencing his father, and also Baka who’s an actual sex offender, so idk why mention that but not mention who it is he’s talking abt
Okay, so I think that’s it. Pyro weirdly left out vital parts of the beef such as how Drake was constantly alluding to Dots wife cheating with the bodyguard. Or other stuff like that. Or just not explaining certain bars and what they mean when it’s like 20 seconds at most. Or why some backlash occurred or like leaving certain things that can paint a picture of why Drake lost which is what he’s attempting to do. Such as him leaving out the fact that the Tupac part got backlash because of the west coast connection. Or how Drake isn’t critiqued for flexing but rather pretending to live a life he never did just because it’s trendy
In other words it just sounds like a white dude who’s never even listened to one song by either artist trying to make money off of it. Stick to Sunnyv2 and inflated furry porn pyro.
2024.05.20 02:13 speedyBoi96240 Round 4: the phantom-weight champion versus the exalted seraph
 | Spitfire slumped over and trudged out of the arena. submitted by speedyBoi96240 to skylanders [link] [comments] His worldview had been altered severely. Not once in his life had he ever thought about giving an opponent respect on their deathbed. But there was just something about that fight that shook his head for him. He ended his round the least injured of anyone before him. An incredible feat considering the two before him were amongst the strongest skylanders. But not only that, round 3 had left the arena in the best state so far. Not many wounds lay upon the battlefield this time giving the cleaners a well deserved break after the catastrophic damage caused in the first 2 rounds. Ambush sat in the stands blown away by what he had just witnessed, other skylanders, mabu and greebles were loudly discussing the outcome. A large and intimidating figure loomed towards ambush. When it reached him a gruff yet booming voice greeted him. “AMBUSH MY GOOD FRIEND ITS NICE TO SEE YOU, WHAT DID I MISS?” Is what the man said. Ambush slightly startled turned to the man knowing exactly who he was. “Tri tip… ive told you countless times that you need to use your inside voice more often” ambush responded. “BUT AMBUSH MY GOOD FRIEND, THIS IS NO TIME FOR SILENCE, THIS IS TIME FOR UPROAR!” Tri tip countered. “Yes yes i suppose an event this exhilarating doesnt happen every day… now you asked what you missed correct?”. “YEYUP”. “Well that spitfire just turned our fellow miss boom bloom into past tense”. “WHAT?”. “I forget you're not the brightest… ahem, boom bloom is dead, spitfire killed her”. “WOAH, SOMEONE ACTUALLY BEAT A SENSEI? AMAZING!” tri tip seemed very happy for someone who had just lost a colleague and friend. “Disturbing priorities aside how is king pen doing?”. “OH YEAH I JUST SAW HIM, HE SHOULD BE SHIP SHAPE BY THE END OF THE NEXT ROUND HE SAID”. “Brilliant, i may have to fight again soon, i dont want him in the hospital for that”. “SO WHO’S UP NEXT?” Tri tip questioned. “Well if you had ever learnt to read you would see the notice board over there” ambush pointed to a large board hovering above the arena as if by magic. “WHEN ONE IS AS IN TOUCH WITH THE POWER OF THE CLUB AS I AM READING PALES IN COMPARISON MY FRIEND”. “Oh no doubt” ambush mocked “well it says the next to fight are night shift and knight light”. Tri tips eyes widened “NO WAY! THE KNIGHT LIGHT? YOU MEAN…”. “I do… the only knight i have ever trained, to surpass me…”. “WOW! I MEAN JUST WOW! WITH A MAN LIKE THAT FIGHTING MY CLUB WANES FOR MY ROUND EVEN MORE!” Tri tips joy could not be contained and exploded out into a destructive little dance that he performed so carelessly that he accidentally trampled a mabu or two yet failed to notice. Suddenly a voice echoed throughout the stadium. “ATTENTION VIEWERS OF THE MOST EXTRAVAGANT EXTRAVAGANZA TO GRACE THIS WORLD IN CENTURIES!” The voice seemed to be coming from speakers placed around the stands. “ROUND 4 OF THE TOURNAMENT WILL BEGIN SHORTLY! DONT FORGET TO PLACE YOUR BETS AND PLEASE MAKE SURE ANY CHILDREN WITHIN THE VICINITY ARE VACATED IMMEDIATELY”. “That’s the que tri tip…” ambush said. tri tip abruptly stopped his dance and swung himself onto one of the benches and yelled “OH SWEET! I CANT WAIT”. “No need to, looks like the fighters are already stepping up to the plate” ambush pointed out. “BRILLIANT! THEY REALLY DID MEAN SHORTLY WHEN THEY SAID SHORTLY!”. “Excellent observation…” ambush said as he rolled his eyes. Before anyone knew it the fighters of round 4 were staring each other down just like the six others before them. Knight light brandished his traptanium scimitar with a stoic expression on his face and night shift was shadow boxing the air inbetween the both of them. Both fighters took their professions before becoming skylanders very seriously. One was an all star in the ring, revered and highly admired amongst the viewership. The other was a knight like no other, an angelic swordsman that wore armour fashioned by the most esteemed blacksmiths and craftsmen skylands had ever known. Even with all of this being popular lore amongst skylands, no one could have forseen what would take place the millisecond the bell rang, no one except the two in the ring. Thats right, a ring, the very place night shift was the reigning champion in for most of his life, until he was forced out due to the officals having to ban his signature techniques. Thats right, they had to ban his fighting style to give anyone a chance. But in this ring… He was free. He could do anything he wanted to the man that stood before him. And night shift displayed his understanding of this once the bell rang… The vampiric boxer opened with a swift chomp to knight lights shoulder. And to everyones suprise… It broke through his armour… The same armour that had never been pierced, not even by the most divine weapons in skylands. Knight light was the only person who was unfazed. “Impressive…” Knight light praised. “You’re impressed by this, boy? Trust me this is nothing compared to what you have yet to see…” night shift stated condescendingly but truthfully. “Is that so? Then please, show me…” Knight light said confidently. Night shift smiled and responded with a technique he liked to call the over underhand. A powerful attack that ended 86% of his fights during his hayday. This involves throwing a simple over hand punch at range, then when the opponent least expects it, using his teleportation he would instantly move in close and throw a powerful under hand strike that embodies the true damage of the technique as opposed to the diversion the first hit is meant to be. So when he performed this on knight light you best believe it did some real damage. Knight light attempted a block on the over hand like so many did in the past. However he simply could not react to the under hand just like everyone else. The resulting damage from the attack left a boxing glove sized hole in knight lights armour revealing his stomach. “Remarkable, i never thoug-” knight light started before being interupted by a lightning fast barrage of punches that were thrown at him. Each punch dented his armour and spread cracks across its surface. Just after a few seconds of the barrage happening knight light had decided that he had had enough… He lifted his hand and bent his fingers like he was holding a sphere before launching a bright flash of light at night shift. “Fighting dirty are we? I can do that too…” knight light said as his opponent was violently blinded. Night shift still had his guard up however, so when knight light swung his scimitar with enough strength to cleave a mountain in two it was not a lethal blow. His knuckle had a chip in it and a tear in one of his coveted gloves was made but overall no problematic damage was taken. An impressive display of a boxing champions instinct that shocked the crowd. “WOW! THIS SHIFTY GUY HAS SOME REAL SKILLS” tri tip yelled to ambush over the cheering audience. “Indeed, however knight light isnt even attempting to win yet…” ambush responded. “WHAT!? THIS IS LITERALLY A FIGHT TO THE DEATH WHAT COULD HE BE WAITING FOR??” tri tip replied in a perplexed manner. “He knows that night shift is not just all stats”. “WHAT?”. “Sigh night shift has a trump card and knight light is trying to bait it out” ambush explained. “AHHH SO HE’S USING HIS BRAIN TO FIGHT! I NEVER REALLY GOT USED TO THAT” tri tip said honestly. “That is unfortunately excruciatingly evident…”. “YEAH WELL YOUR BIG FANCY WORDS HAVE NOTHING ON MY CLUB!” Tri tip yelled defensively. “Yes im sure thats the case, now lets just focus on the match” ambush redirected. “FINE! BUT ONLY BECAUSE THAT ONES THROWING A HAYMAKER!!”. and sure enough if you were watching the fight in that very moment you would see a still blinded night shift throw a devestatingly powerful punch that made a perfect connection with the skull of his opponent. A large shockwave was created by the impact and the tiles of the arena crumbled but more importantly knight lights helmet shattered into a thousand pieces. The man who's face had not been seen ever since his duty of protecting the starlight began… Had eyes cast upon that very face for the first time since then. Underneath he was not a gruff viking or an ascended immortal, instead he was just a person, like everyone else. All of the legends that were told about him had clouded everyones view of such a figure. The revealing of his face made knight light feel more human, it grounded him for the first time in a while, like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. So the act came off, the veil was lifted and he spoke… “you shitty old man…”. At the very sight of hearing such words from this man the crowd silenced themselves. “Do you really think anything you have done so far is impressive?” He continued “Do you really think someone like me could ever be compared to you?” “Well… i thought those things too, until that punch just now” knight light smiled a comforting smile “All of my battles and feats placed me on a pedestal that i wasnt worthy of in my eyes” “But you have just brought me down into a sport” “A place i can be myself and not the stoic hero everyone thinks i am” “So for that i thank you” “Ya done squirt?” Night shift grumbled obviously just regaining his eyesight. “I am” knight light responded. “Good, because all of this character development is real nice n’ all but i want to know why, even after everything i’ve thrown at you…” “You’re still in the same spot you started the match in” The crowd remained silent but in response to night shifts statement the silence grew louder. No one had realised it but even after taking hits that easily broke his armour not once had knight lights feet ever left the ground, not once had he ever been knocked backwards, not once had he cried out in pain and whats more? Not once had he bled. “Well you see… my armour is moreso for theatrics, batman has his outfit, superman has his and so does wonder woman” knight light answered. “Are you sassing me compadre?” Night shift snarled. “Not at all! It is strong armour no doubt but my armour is never what made me strong, no no you see my bones and muscles were enhanced by the starlight itself, after a millenia within its proximity, intern granting me enormous power”. “You talk like your blood is gold and honestly that makes my blood boil but what you're telling me scares me…”. “Why’s that?”. “Because if what you said was true that means… that swing you took at me whilst i was blind, was your absolute weakest possible attack”. “Atleast it wasn’t obvious” knight light chuckled. The crowd began getting loud at the changing tides, this fight just went from fairly even to a massive mismatch. However an interesting development in knight lights demeanour was noticeable as it was no longer pompous and gallant but he was a lot more lax despite still displaying faint hints of those aforementioned traits. “Since a funeral is gonna have to happen soon its best we get back to the fight” night shift yawned. “We probably should but don’t dig your own grave like that, its unbecoming of a champion”. “Oh i wasn’t talking about me pal… ive got no one to attend my funeral”. “Ah a lonely road you’ve paved i take it?”. Night shifts eye twitched with irritation “let’s just box, im sick of hearing shakespear”. “As you wish” knight light obliged and opened with a brutal yet glamorous attack. This attack wasn’t even initiated by so little as a gesture. It simply started with light pouring out of knight lights body. This light was very water like and flowed gracefully before sharpening and becoming rigid. Once solid it wrapped around night shift before he had any hope of reacting to such an attack. It then pulled him towards knight light who began to charge up a special type of swing. One that follows through beyond all the way. This technique was one that had slain many elderitch horrors in the past and its name was “the celestial vortex”. Once night shift was stunned, helpless and in range knight light let loose… He swung his scimitar, but not just regularly, like i said, beyond all the way. The second half of the celestial vortex consists of a 1080 degree spin with the traptanium scimitar. This means the attack encompasses the full area around knight light and strikes three seperate times with powerful blows. And so that is exactly what happened to night shift… The first hit ripped through his ghastly body, the second shattered his mortal bones and the third killed him. Or so everyone thought because although his body laid lifeless on the ground moments after the incredible attack, a coffin manifested around it out of nowhere. This coffin had an ominous aura that swirled in demonic fury around it. But not long after appearing it burst open and a good as new night shift was there ready to settle the score. “Suprise, im immortal” he said with an astonishing amount of hubris for a man who just got diced in three seperate ways. “So thats it is it?” Knight light in the arena and ambush in the audience understood the event at the same time and prefaced this with the exact same words. “THATS GOTTA BREAK SOME KIND OF RULE RIGHT!?” tri tip roared in signature sportsfan fashion. “Well surely an opponent that can’t die has a supreme advantage in a battle to the death yes, however there may be ways around it we are currently unaware of” ambush tried to approach the situation with logic and reason. “NA THIS GUY IS GONNA WIN THE ENTIRE THING, THIS JUST GOT BORING IM OUT” tri tip angrily hopped out of his seat and turned to leave the stadium. Instead he bumped into an individual almost as large as himself. It was king pen, still bandaged up a tad but overall he seemed in good health. “Now now tri tip, did the club not teach you patience?” King pen persuaded. “WHA- KING PEN YOU’RE BACK UP AND RUNNING ALREADY!?” Tri tip was startled by the sudden appearance of his leader, mentor and friend. “Why yes i am, and im glad to say i did not miss too much of this spectacular match”. “BUT YOU SAID YOU’D BE READY BY THE END OF ROUND 4”. “Oh silly tri tip, always being so dense, thats what i love about you, theres no bigger picture in your mind. Can’t you see the round is already coming to a close?” His words sounded harsh but they were comforting and professional in a strange way. “I- IT IS?”. “Just watch, my friend” king pen put a hand on the shoulder tri tip did not have his club over and guided him back into his seat then sat peacefully beside him. Night shift was still, his guard was raised and his eyes were focused. Knight light was obviously brain storming, desperately trying to find a way he could overcome immortality. But it wasn’t possible… There isn’t a way to kill an opponent that can’t die… All he could do was smile softly. “There may be nothing i can do to you vampire… however! I will put up my very best against you!” He said confidently. “Id expect nothing less” night shift replied in agreement with his philosophy. And so knight light engaged with a heavy swing downwards onto night shift who swiftly teleported out of the way. Knight light spun around with another ferocious swing that again was dodged easily. The powerful shockwaves from these attacks tore apart the arena violently. Many more swings were performed and each successive one had more power than the last. After 12 or so more attacks night shift performed his final dodge. Not to say he got hit no, he simply began charging up a powerful punch in response to knight lights onslought. This was no ordinary punch however. The way he tensed his phantom muscles was very unique. He held the power that he would normally release into one of his jabs. This subsequently multiplied the force that the punch would exert. But the main problem was that he had to hold the punch for a while. A feat that wasn’t easy with an actively attacking opponent. So when knight light began another swing, night shift tapped into a power that would majorly help him. This power allowed him to constantly teleport to every location simultaneously within a small area around knight light. This made him virtually unhittable. He called it “the ghost gods ring”. Knight light was completely perplexed by the sight of such an ability. His attacks halted and his brain was scattered in thought. But again everything has a downside and this technique drained night shifts stamina incredibly fast. At the very least he had to throw this powerful punch with enough energy to not make it a dud. However he only had this one chance to do it… It was an all or nothing approach but it was the only way he could ever hope to win. So he channelled both techniques for an entire minute. A minute is what he assumed to be the perfect amount of time but really he had no clue. A constant minute of being omnipresent in a specific section of the arena… A constant minute of having his very internal forces gestate and multiply within his muscles… This was an incredibly risky play to make, if he didnt end this with this attack he was absolutely done for. His body would be destroyed internally and he would be forced to die over and over again until he had regained enough energy to try it again. But now was the time to launch it… He methodically stopped his rapid teleportation behind knight light. Then he released all of the pent up force he had been holding in, into a full fledged super punch. The punch radiated power, it generated shockwaves just by existing. Reality warped and light bended around it. The size of the fist grew to a humongous size as if by the will of the universe. This attack was called “The pinnacle of punches” and it ended 1% of night shifts matches back in the day. It came into contact with knight light before he even realised what was happening. Steam was being let off in every direction and the surrounding section of the arena was levelled completely with nothing built by mabu remaining. Knight lights last few pieces of armour turned to dust. All that survived was his boots and his pants. Night shift struggled to keep the punch thrown. His vision swayed and his energy dwindled but he kept holding out for the win. Well he did until… His fist exploded. The sheer pressure of the clash was too much for his hand to take. Everyone including both fighters were absolutely gobsmacked with this development in the fight. But what they were to see next would set the precedent… that this fight was unwinnable… Knight light appeared to have taken zero damage from that attack. And whats worse was the fact that his feet were still in the exact same spot they had been in the entire fight. The first person to realise the match was a lost cause was none other than night shift himself. “So thats it huh…” he said in a hushed tone “You are one hell of a guy” “You took the best i had…” “And you’re not just still standing…” “You didn’t even budge, you didn’t even bruise” “The only one who got hurt by that hit was me” “And honestly i’d be pissed if it didn’t…” “That was the strongest punch i have ever thrown and im proud of it” “But more importantly im concerned about this match now…” “Neither of us can kill the other, i can’t put a dent on ya and you can’t put me down for good” “So what’re we gon’ do?” He finished “While i appreciate your praise and your power i actually did think of a way to kill you” knight light confessed. If everyone wasn’t already silent from shock they were now. “You did?” Night shift asked intrigued. “Yeah but before i show you i just wanted to say a few things” “I’ve never had such an intense fight” “Its been a real rollercoaster and to be quite honest at the beginning i thought you were just a grumpy old fart” “But you exceeded every expectation i had of you” “And just for you im gonna try to talk normally from now on” he finished the sentence with one last comforting smile “Hehe… i’d say your doing a great job, i understood every word you said just fine” night shift chuckled. The whole crowd was dying to know what knight light had in store for them. No one could believe a way to kill the unkillable existed. But little did they know… Knight light was about to invent one… “Alright!” He yelled to gather everyones attention “Observe! For you won’t see a more impressive attack as long as you venture within this realm!” He said raising his arms, one holding his scimitar “So much for talking normally…” night shift mumbled. All of the spectators viewed intently only to see… Knight light doing the unthinkable before doing the even more unthinkable. He stepped forward… For the first time in this match he had moved out of his starting position. A thing that would be commonplace in any other fight had become suprising to see in this one. But he didn’t step forward for no reason no, he took a stance with his scimitar over his head in the air. He was slightly crouched and he held his free hand outwards like he was stopping someone. His wings outstretched themselves as if ready to take flight. Now that all of the preparation was done he inhaled slowly then exhaled even slower… Suddenly a pool of light formed around his feet and expanded to encompass a large area around him. Then his body began to glow with a radiant light, like that of the sun. The very same light encircled his sword and began to wrap around it like a web that flexed and vibrated in a helix pattern. “Your fighting style reminded me of something…” he began “The way you made yourself seem numerous and the fact that every punch you threw was stunningly beautiful” “It just brought stars to my mind” “And what was around before the stars?” “Nothing” “So thats exactly what this attack will do” “Not nothing, but it will completely erase anything in its path, wiping anything from the face of reality” The crowd loudly discussed this revelation. Ofcourse it was so simple yet no one else had ever thought of it. The crowd seemed to understand the weight of these statements. But one question was asked numerous times within their discussions. Could an attack really remove something from the world for good? Well… Knight light would be about to answer that question… For when he swings his blade… The truth will be evident. “In a way this attack will be named after you…” knight light was still talking as the attack was charging “You inspired it…” the light danced around him in the air and shimmered on his body “And Im going to name it after the inspiration” his scimitar was glowing with a very volatile and unstable light that shifted tones so much no one could determine its colour “It must be an honour having to be killed this way…” his muscles tensed in response to the light moving on his body as if they were soaking it in like a plant “Likewise its an honour having to kill you this way…” the very air in the stadium began to sparkle like glitter “That’s why im calling this ability, the highest possible grade of attack that can ever be reached, “the brightest constellation” as soon as he finished those words knight light jumped into the air “I couldn’t have had a better opponent in this here match today… thank you” night shift heroically stood proud ready to embrace death as he said his final words. The jump knight light performed broke the sound barrier and created a sonic boom that sent people in the stadium flying off of their seats. The liquid light that covered the floor of the arena attempted to follow him up into the sky, this created a bunch of pillars that were formed out of this light. Once knight light reached the apex of his jump he began hovering in place with his wings. “I thank you too…” he muttered knowing that only he could hear anything he had to say. Then he readied his scimitar and began a skydive back down to the arena. Light encompassed his body like a cacoon. It swirled enchantingly around him. On the otherhand the light on his blade began to erupt with an unsettling degree of colour. Before he knew it he was nearing the ground. In preparation he held his sword in the swinging position. Then when he was within the boundaries of the stadium again he swung his blade horizontally towards night shift with the momentum of his skydive included. All of the light within his blade, surrounding him and on the floor of the arena shot at night shift. He landed shortly after. Before reaching night shift the light transformed into stars that were linked together by lines, they resembled constellations incredibly well. But they didn’t last long because shortly after coming into creation they detonated and discharged a beyond blinding amount of light. Everyone in the audience could not see as a result of this. The attack was the mother of all flashbangs and everyone going wild in the stands proved it. The fact that they could not see meant they could not know what happened to night shift. And that was the main focus right in this moment. Everyone NEEDED to know what had happened. But no one would get an answer until the first few viewers regained their eyesight. After 19 excruciatingly long and chaotic minutes the very first people able to see again witnessed the state the arena was in. The entire third of the arena night shift was stood in… Had been decimated… It looked as though it had been carved right down to nothing, it boasted a weirdly smooth and eerie shape. Almost like within a radius of that attack, things had indeed been set to zero. But no one knew how. No one except knight light. Who was smiling with a tear in his eye. he grimly said with a catch in his throat “i’ll come to your funeral night shift…”. THE WINNER OF THIS BOUT IS KNIGHT LIGHT, THE EXALTED SERAPH! |
2024.05.20 02:03 i_eat_ass_all_day I feel like nothing is changing and everything sucks :(
Hey all, sorry to be the next depressed poster on this sub.
I'm really sorry because I know you guys probably get annoyed by these posts.
TL:DR - I will probably never be able to live as a woman because nothing is happening and I don't have a way to fix it.
I'm a 23 y/o transfemme.
I've been on hrt for a year and three months now and I have had zero changes. I've talked with my friends and I have pictures from just before and throughout the last year and three months - nothing's is different as far as I can tell or as far as my friends can tell.
I guess my HRT levels aren't good? I got checked every month when I started until 4 months in and now it's every three months. My first doctor that I started with never said whether or not my levels were specifically too low or anything except for my first test with him, which made sense since I was on low dose mono therapy. My new doctor always say something is wrong with my levels, telling me that they were way too high and my dosage was way too high and now she keeps saying that they are too low after she reduced and modified my dosages. I want to trust my new doctor because she is widely regarded in my area as the best hrt doctor. As for now, I recently started injections and have been on it for 4 weeks.
I also worry that it may just be because my body is going to change with my genetics. Even as a man, my genetics have cursed me with awful traits like REALLY wide shoulders, big hands and big feet. And I know that cis women also can have large feet and broad shoulders and big hands but I can bet that 99% of cis women don't wear a size 14M/15.5W shoe. I also started having my hair thin in My freshman year of high school, so that's cool - a year and half of Finasteride hasn't done shit for that. There is also my facial hair, no matter what I do - I always cut myself when shaving, No matter what. I've been trying to get into a dermatologist for months now to see if I have some fucked up skin or something because it's getting to the point where I often find my self crying because I hate the feel of my stubble. Same with body hair, my skin always breaks out into hives and rashes when I shave my body, no matter what cream and razor I use.
My friends and (most of) my coworkers refer to me as a woman and use she/her pronouns but I can't help occasionally feel contempt as it feels like they are mocking me almost. I know they aren't but it definitely feels like they are. And for the coworkers that doesn't do that, they often look at my she/her pronoun pin and then proceed to use them/them for me, and according to my coworker friends - just use he/him when I'm not around.
submitted by i_eat_ass_all_day to MtF [link] [comments]
I'm really sorry because I know you guys probably get annoyed by these posts.
TL:DR - I will probably never be able to live as a woman because nothing is happening and I don't have a way to fix it.
I'm a 23 y/o transfemme.
I've been on hrt for a year and three months now and I have had zero changes. I've talked with my friends and I have pictures from just before and throughout the last year and three months - nothing's is different as far as I can tell or as far as my friends can tell.
I guess my HRT levels aren't good? I got checked every month when I started until 4 months in and now it's every three months. My first doctor that I started with never said whether or not my levels were specifically too low or anything except for my first test with him, which made sense since I was on low dose mono therapy. My new doctor always say something is wrong with my levels, telling me that they were way too high and my dosage was way too high and now she keeps saying that they are too low after she reduced and modified my dosages. I want to trust my new doctor because she is widely regarded in my area as the best hrt doctor. As for now, I recently started injections and have been on it for 4 weeks.
I also worry that it may just be because my body is going to change with my genetics. Even as a man, my genetics have cursed me with awful traits like REALLY wide shoulders, big hands and big feet. And I know that cis women also can have large feet and broad shoulders and big hands but I can bet that 99% of cis women don't wear a size 14M/15.5W shoe. I also started having my hair thin in My freshman year of high school, so that's cool - a year and half of Finasteride hasn't done shit for that. There is also my facial hair, no matter what I do - I always cut myself when shaving, No matter what. I've been trying to get into a dermatologist for months now to see if I have some fucked up skin or something because it's getting to the point where I often find my self crying because I hate the feel of my stubble. Same with body hair, my skin always breaks out into hives and rashes when I shave my body, no matter what cream and razor I use.
My friends and (most of) my coworkers refer to me as a woman and use she/her pronouns but I can't help occasionally feel contempt as it feels like they are mocking me almost. I know they aren't but it definitely feels like they are. And for the coworkers that doesn't do that, they often look at my she/her pronoun pin and then proceed to use them/them for me, and according to my coworker friends - just use he/him when I'm not around.
2024.05.20 01:52 mc510 Thoughts on finishing out a TuffShed for office/studio use?
We're looking for a quick build 120sf office/studio shed. It's hell trying to hire a contractor around here, and we can't get a totally prefab unit into our back yard, so I'm thinking about buying a TuffShed Premier Pro Tall and finishing out the interior, which is appealing because they build wall panel units off site and just assemble in a day or two.
I know TuffShed is not the highest quality build, so I'm wondering what sort of issues I'd run into and whether there are good workarounds. I'm picturing having a full concrete slab installed, so we'll have a good base. I'd pay the upcharge for house wrap, concrete shiplap siding, and residential sliding door. I could then spend a few days doing stuff to improve workmanship (what might that be?), rough-in electrical, insulation, flooring, maybe a small skylight. Then call in a drywall guy and an electrician to connect to the panel.
Is this the worst idea ever? Or reasonable as long as I'm clear-eyed about the extra work?
I'd be happy to pay a bit more for a better quality partial-prefab, but I haven't found any other providers that will customize to the extent that TuffShed will, and none with the TuffShed's traditional peaked roof.
submitted by mc510 to shedditors [link] [comments]
I know TuffShed is not the highest quality build, so I'm wondering what sort of issues I'd run into and whether there are good workarounds. I'm picturing having a full concrete slab installed, so we'll have a good base. I'd pay the upcharge for house wrap, concrete shiplap siding, and residential sliding door. I could then spend a few days doing stuff to improve workmanship (what might that be?), rough-in electrical, insulation, flooring, maybe a small skylight. Then call in a drywall guy and an electrician to connect to the panel.
Is this the worst idea ever? Or reasonable as long as I'm clear-eyed about the extra work?
I'd be happy to pay a bit more for a better quality partial-prefab, but I haven't found any other providers that will customize to the extent that TuffShed will, and none with the TuffShed's traditional peaked roof.
2024.05.20 01:50 Soninetz Unbounce vs Webflow: A Detailed Comparison, Which wins?
 | Considering Unbounce vs. Webflow for your website needs? These two platforms offer distinct features catering to different user preferences. Unbounce focuses on creating high-converting landing pages with ease and lead generation, while Webflow provides a comprehensive design and development tool for building custom websites from scratch. Understanding the comparison between Unbounce's simplicity in landing page creation and Webflow's robust web design capabilities, as well as their intuitive interface, can help you choose the best fit for your project. Dive into this comparison to uncover which platform aligns better with your website goals and design preferences. submitted by Soninetz to AllPromos [link] [comments] Useful Links: Key Takeaways
Overview of PlatformsCore FocusUnbounce primarily focuses on landing pages, offering a user-friendly platform for creating high-converting pages without the need for coding skills, catering to users and website design. On the other hand, Webflow is more versatile, serving as a comprehensive website design and development tool with various use cases for businesses and users.Target AudienceUnbounce caters to marketers and small businesses looking to optimize their conversion rates through effective landing pages. In contrast, Webflow appeals to users, designers, and developers seeking full control over the design and functionality of their websites.https://preview.redd.it/rzvvm5yf0h1d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f3832be3763e273a3e87c648acc1050df828ae5 Elevate your conversion game 🚀 Kickstart with Unbounce's Free Trial! 📊 Tools and FeaturesUnbounce provides a range of templates, A/B testing tools, and integrations with marketing platforms to enhance lead generation. Meanwhile, Webflow stands out with its robust CMS capabilities, allowing users to build dynamic websites with content management features.
Interface and Ease of UseUnbounceUnbounce offers an intuitive interface that simplifies the website creation process. With its drag-and-drop functionality, users can easily design interactive websites without needing coding skills. The platform's focus on users' experience ensures a smooth workflow for creating landing pages.WebflowWebflow provides a more complex design environment compared to Unbounce. While it offers powerful design capabilities and flexibility, it requires a steeper learning curve due to its advanced features and functionalities. Users looking for more functionality and customization options might prefer Webflow for their projects.Learning CurveUnbounce is known for its simplicity, making it ideal for users who prioritize ease of use and quick setup. In contrast, Webflow caters to users who require more control over their designs but are willing to invest time in mastering the platform's features. The choice between Unbounce and Webflow often comes down to the user's preference for a straightforward interface versus a more intricate design tool.Content Management CapabilitiesLanding Pages EmphasisUnbounce primarily focuses on landing pages, offering a simple yet effective platform for creating conversion-driven websites. Its page builder and editor streamline the process of landing page creation, ideal for marketers and small businesses.On the other hand, Webflow stands out with its comprehensive content management system (CMS) capabilities. It goes beyond just landing pages, allowing users to create dynamic content and manage comprehensive website design effectively. Website Management ScopeWhile Unbounce excels at creating high-converting landing pages, its limited CMS capabilities restrict users in terms of managing broader website content. In contrast, Webflow's robust CMS system enables users to handle various aspects of web design, from SEO optimization features to hosting and page templates.Useful Links: SEO Optimization and CustomizationWith Unbounce, users might find themselves constrained when it comes to implementing advanced SEO strategies or customizing beyond landing pages. In comparison, Webflow provides extensive tools for SEO optimization, empowering web designers to enhance their websites' visibility and user experience effectively.Pricing ComparisonUnbounce PricingUnbounce offers various pricing plans based on the number of landing pages and monthly conversions. Users can opt for plans starting from $80 per month for up to 500 conversions and 20 landing pages. The higher-tier plans, such as the Premium plan at $200 per month, cater to more extensive needs with unlimited landing pages and up to 30,000 conversions.Webflow PricingWebflow's pricing model is structured around features, traffic volume, and hosting requirements. Their basic plan starts at $12 per month, providing essential features for small-scale websites. As the complexity and traffic volume increase, users can choose the CMS plan at $16 per month or the Business plan at $36 per month, offering advanced functionalities like site search and form submissions.Comparing Pricing StrategiesWhen comparing Unbounce and Webflow's pricing strategies, Unbounce focuses more on conversion optimization by tailoring plans according to landing pages and conversions. On the other hand, Webflow emphasizes flexibility by offering different plans catering to varying website complexities and traffic volumes. While Unbounce provides a free trial to test their services, Webflow stands out with its ability to code websites directly within the platform.Tools and ResourcesOptimization ToolsUnbounce offers essential optimization tools like A/B testing and pop-ups, enabling businesses to enhance their marketing strategies effectively. These features help in analyzing the performance of campaigns and improving conversion rates.Wide RangeWebflow boasts a diverse array of tools ranging from forms to e-commerce functionalities and animations. This platform caters to various needs, making it a versatile choice for businesses looking to create visually appealing websites with seamless functionality.Unique OfferingsUnbounce stands out with its unique resources such as customizable templates and user-friendly interface, simplifying the process of creating landing pages. This makes it an ideal choice for startups and small businesses with specific development requirements.Webflow, on the other hand, provides developers with advanced management features and extensive support for building complex websites. Its range of services caters to both beginners and experienced developers, offering flexibility in website creation. Closing ThoughtsAfter comparing Unbounce and Webflow across various aspects, you now have a clearer picture of their strengths and weaknesses. Unbounce shines with its user-friendly interface and robust landing page capabilities, making it a top choice for marketers looking to optimize conversions quickly. On the other hand, Webflow's design flexibility and extensive customization options cater more to web designers seeking creative freedom in building websites.As you weigh your options between Unbounce and Webflow, consider your specific needs and priorities. Whether you prioritize ease of use and conversion-focused features or value design control and customization, both platforms offer unique benefits. Take the time to assess which platform aligns best with your goals and resources to make an informed decision that will propel your online presence forward. Step into boundless marketing success 🌟 Start your Unbounce Free Trial now! 🎉 Frequently Asked QuestionsIs Unbounce or Webflow easier to use for beginners?Unbounce offers a more straightforward interface tailored for marketers and designers with drag-and-drop functionality. Webflow, while powerful, has a steeper learning curve due to its advanced design capabilities and customization options.Which platform is better for managing content efficiently?Webflow provides robust content management capabilities with a visual editor and CMS features suitable for complex websites. Unbounce, on the other hand, focuses more on landing page creation and optimization rather than extensive content management.How do Unbounce and Webflow compare in terms of pricing?Unbounce offers tiered pricing based on traffic limits and features, starting at $80/month. Webflow's pricing is based on site plans, starting at $12/month for basic hosting but can increase significantly based on additional features and services.What tools and resources are available for users of Unbounce and Webflow?Unbounce provides A/B testing tools, conversion optimization resources, and integrations with various marketing platforms. Webflow offers a visual website builder, e-commerce tools, hosting services, and a community forum for support and learning resources.Useful Links: |
2024.05.20 01:47 adhonus Week Ahead for May 20, 2024: Downtown Mall Committee calls for parking meters, more seatings and reimagining what outdoor cafes look like; BAR to get first look six-story building at 10th and Wertland
I’m in Downer’s Grove, a suburban locality southwest of Chicago. I’m sitting at a brewery having earned an internal reward for writing up another edition of the Week Ahead newsletter. Now I’m going to sit here writing up these blurbs for Charlottesville that double as a prompt for tomorrow’s radio appearance on WINA. I was going to skip tomorrow so I could explore Chicago, but there’s so much happening this week that I want people to know about.
So, let’s go:
DOWNTOWN MALL
I’m quoted in this week’s C-Ville Weekly article on the Downtown Mall which is also weird because I write a weekly column for that publication as well. On Monday, Council will be presented with recommendations from a committee that has suggested ways to reform the mall and how it managed. They’ve also made suggestions that have been floated before but didn’t get anywhere, such as adding parking meters and adding more seats. They also suggest a revisit of how outdoor cafes are regulated, with a possible idea of changing their boundaries to allow for more pedestrian flow. Also possibly charging more. There’s a lot in the report worth reading. (there’s a link in my summary).
150 to 190 AFFORDABLE UNITS at 10th and Wertland
We can now look at the first image of what a six story building at the corner of 10th and Wertland would look like. This is the first major development under the new Development Code, and the first of three projects in the University of Virginia’s affordable housing initiative that seeks to construct between 1,000 and 1,500 units on land owned by them or the UVA Foundation. The Board of Architectural Review will take a first look at their meeting on Tuesday. Take a look at the picture with this segment. This infill development will transform Charlottesville and make a move to a more urban character. But is that road even close to handling the traffic? What do you think? (read more)
TRANSIT PLANS
On Tuesday, Charlottesville Area Transit will hold a virtual meeting on their transit strategic plan. Public comment is being taken through May 31, and this webinar offers an opportunity to learn how changes will be implemented gradually as the number of buses come online. I admit I follow this closely because I’m an avid fan of taking a bus if I don’t have to drive. But I really want people to pay attention to transit policy as the core of Charlottesville community prepares for more density. (this is a story I wrote last week) (learn more about the meeting)
PRIVATE SCHOOL REQUEST
At this point, I cannot provide empirical evidence that private schools, particularly Christian schools, have seen increased enrollment in the past few years. I do know that entities like the Christian Community Academy state that they have more and more applicants but don’t have the space to accommodate them. This Thursday, the Places29-Rio Community Advisory Committee will have a community meeting about a special use permit request from CCA that seeks to be able to build 9,000 square feet worth of modular buildings to accommodate their middle school enrollment. As part of the packet, they’re saying they will come back with a rezoning for a new building and to increase enrollment further. I’d like to read a story about the growth of private Christian schools that seeks to understand why. But not one that demonizes the parents who make the choice to take their kids out of the public option available to them. Is this how we further the cultural divide that threatens to tear us all apart? (learn more about the meeting)
OTHER ITEMS:
submitted by adhonus to Charlottesville [link] [comments]
So, let’s go:
DOWNTOWN MALL
I’m quoted in this week’s C-Ville Weekly article on the Downtown Mall which is also weird because I write a weekly column for that publication as well. On Monday, Council will be presented with recommendations from a committee that has suggested ways to reform the mall and how it managed. They’ve also made suggestions that have been floated before but didn’t get anywhere, such as adding parking meters and adding more seats. They also suggest a revisit of how outdoor cafes are regulated, with a possible idea of changing their boundaries to allow for more pedestrian flow. Also possibly charging more. There’s a lot in the report worth reading. (there’s a link in my summary).
150 to 190 AFFORDABLE UNITS at 10th and Wertland
We can now look at the first image of what a six story building at the corner of 10th and Wertland would look like. This is the first major development under the new Development Code, and the first of three projects in the University of Virginia’s affordable housing initiative that seeks to construct between 1,000 and 1,500 units on land owned by them or the UVA Foundation. The Board of Architectural Review will take a first look at their meeting on Tuesday. Take a look at the picture with this segment. This infill development will transform Charlottesville and make a move to a more urban character. But is that road even close to handling the traffic? What do you think? (read more)
TRANSIT PLANS
On Tuesday, Charlottesville Area Transit will hold a virtual meeting on their transit strategic plan. Public comment is being taken through May 31, and this webinar offers an opportunity to learn how changes will be implemented gradually as the number of buses come online. I admit I follow this closely because I’m an avid fan of taking a bus if I don’t have to drive. But I really want people to pay attention to transit policy as the core of Charlottesville community prepares for more density. (this is a story I wrote last week) (learn more about the meeting)
PRIVATE SCHOOL REQUEST
At this point, I cannot provide empirical evidence that private schools, particularly Christian schools, have seen increased enrollment in the past few years. I do know that entities like the Christian Community Academy state that they have more and more applicants but don’t have the space to accommodate them. This Thursday, the Places29-Rio Community Advisory Committee will have a community meeting about a special use permit request from CCA that seeks to be able to build 9,000 square feet worth of modular buildings to accommodate their middle school enrollment. As part of the packet, they’re saying they will come back with a rezoning for a new building and to increase enrollment further. I’d like to read a story about the growth of private Christian schools that seeks to understand why. But not one that demonizes the parents who make the choice to take their kids out of the public option available to them. Is this how we further the cultural divide that threatens to tear us all apart? (learn more about the meeting)
OTHER ITEMS:
- Louisa County Supervisors will consider a budget supplement of around three-quarters of a million dollars to cover a shortfall for fire and rescue services (learn more about the meeting)
- The Albemarle Architectural Review Board will consider an amendment to add five more units to what had been proposed as six (learn more about the meeting)
- The MPO Policy Board will adopt the long-range transportation plan and endorse Smart Scale candidate projects, a process that is transparent but depends on reporting to let the public know what’s happening which is what I do. (learn more about the meeting)
- Nelson County’s Planning Commission will discuss a series of recommendations about how to alter the zoning code to better implement the recently adopted Comprehensive Plan. (learn more about the meeting)
2024.05.20 01:45 seallover897 possible beaver?? central MN
 | there's a beaver lodge and dam in a small creek near where I live. I visited it today and saw this animal?? (sorry for the blurry picture ik its bad and not much to go on) it seemed to be 1-2 feet long head to tail and it went inside both the lodge and what appeared to be a small hole on the side of the bank. it doesn't look like a beaver to me though and it seems small. I wasn't able to see the tail which is why I'm confused. any ideas? ft pictures of the lodge and dam submitted by seallover897 to animalid [link] [comments] |
2024.05.20 01:22 saladfork23 Off leash dog owners are out of control
Was at Irving park today with my wife and infant son, sitting on a blanket minding our own business. Suddenly 2 small dogs, a Jack Russel and a black lap dog, darted over to us and were making a direct line to my baby.
I like dogs but not around my 7mo son, especially an energetic and powerful dog like a Jack Russel.
Being annoyed and wary, I immediately said to the owner “hey please put your dog on a leash around my baby, this isn’t a dog run.”
The guy said “did he threaten your baby?” Fucking psycho, we are not going to WAIT for something bad to happen to my baby, you have no right to let your ripped Jack Russel run freely through a park in a way it could even potentially threaten someone, let alone a baby. Put it in a leash.
He then added “relax bro you’re 6 feet away” as if his dog wasn’t sprinting all around the park. Is that a new rule I’m not aware of? That if a dog is 6 feet away it doesn’t pose a danger?
Of course this entitled prick didn’t leash the dogs, he just moved like 10 feet away and kept playing ball with his dog.
I reported him to 311 but there was also a Palestine rally happening and NYPD had other concerns.
I just cannot believe the attitude of some of these new dog people. Since when can you just let a dog run around New York City, in a park or otherwise?? I have a baby, we have every right to safely enjoy the park, and you have literally no right to speak to me that way when I asked you to do the reasonable and courteous thing.
I hope you see this, because I’m reporting you every single time I see you and your dogs running around my local park off leash. I’ll introduce myself next time as the guy who is going to keep reporting you.
Had to rant, I’m just so fed up with this bullshit.
submitted by saladfork23 to Bushwick [link] [comments]
I like dogs but not around my 7mo son, especially an energetic and powerful dog like a Jack Russel.
Being annoyed and wary, I immediately said to the owner “hey please put your dog on a leash around my baby, this isn’t a dog run.”
The guy said “did he threaten your baby?” Fucking psycho, we are not going to WAIT for something bad to happen to my baby, you have no right to let your ripped Jack Russel run freely through a park in a way it could even potentially threaten someone, let alone a baby. Put it in a leash.
He then added “relax bro you’re 6 feet away” as if his dog wasn’t sprinting all around the park. Is that a new rule I’m not aware of? That if a dog is 6 feet away it doesn’t pose a danger?
Of course this entitled prick didn’t leash the dogs, he just moved like 10 feet away and kept playing ball with his dog.
I reported him to 311 but there was also a Palestine rally happening and NYPD had other concerns.
I just cannot believe the attitude of some of these new dog people. Since when can you just let a dog run around New York City, in a park or otherwise?? I have a baby, we have every right to safely enjoy the park, and you have literally no right to speak to me that way when I asked you to do the reasonable and courteous thing.
I hope you see this, because I’m reporting you every single time I see you and your dogs running around my local park off leash. I’ll introduce myself next time as the guy who is going to keep reporting you.
Had to rant, I’m just so fed up with this bullshit.
2024.05.20 01:17 Ok_Transition2838 Elastic Nipples - losing hope
Hey all, I am looking for some hope to deal with an extremely elastic nipple that is also contributing to a supply issue. This is my second time pumping. I currently am 5 weeks PP with twins. The first time around, I had an oversupply and donated a ton of milk. My nipples were elastic but they didn’t cause any issues. Towards the end of my pumping journey, I noticed my left nipple was stretching out more and more but at the time I was wrapping up my pumping journey so it wasn’t a huge deal.
Fast forward to almost 3 years later and that one nipple is SO elastic! It hits the end of the flange every single time. It hurts and it is inhibiting flow, causing clogs, and decreasing milk supply (at 5 weeks pp I am still not at a full supply for twins and am really bummed after producing so easily the first time). I am currently using 21 mm spectra flanges and have to actually hold my boob back while I pump to try to stop the nipple from stretching. I feel like I’m starting to lose hope that anything will help. I’m spending a ton of money and mental energy and it’s exhausting! Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
submitted by Ok_Transition2838 to ExclusivelyPumping [link] [comments]
Fast forward to almost 3 years later and that one nipple is SO elastic! It hits the end of the flange every single time. It hurts and it is inhibiting flow, causing clogs, and decreasing milk supply (at 5 weeks pp I am still not at a full supply for twins and am really bummed after producing so easily the first time). I am currently using 21 mm spectra flanges and have to actually hold my boob back while I pump to try to stop the nipple from stretching. I feel like I’m starting to lose hope that anything will help. I’m spending a ton of money and mental energy and it’s exhausting! Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
- Pumpin Pals S and M flanges- small felt too small and kind of hurt. M (hard plastic) didn’t do much at all and was just a pain to deal with
- Lacteck flanges in 21 and 19 mm- these hurt so much! My nipple swells to three times its size in circumference, more than in plastic flanges, and rubs against the edges with tons of friction. Not a fan.
- Sizing down to 19mm- I’ve been sized by two different IBCLCs who thought that side should be a 19, but the 19s give me blisters 🙃 so I’ve had to go back to the 21s each time
- BeauGen cushions - these were the most promising as my nipple finally didn’t hit the end of the flange! But the mushroom nipple at the end was sooooo bad and painful. My nipple still went way past the cushion in the flange.
- Reducing suction, increasing suction, you name it.
2024.05.20 01:10 Soninetz Spocket vs AliExpress: The Ultimate Dropshipping Comparison
 | Unsure whether to choose Spocket or AliExpress for your dropshipping needs? Let's break it down. Spocket offers fast shipping and quality products from US and EU suppliers, perfect for quick deliveries and customer satisfaction for ecommerce platforms. On the other hand, AliExpress, an online store, provides a vast range of products from multiple suppliers at lower prices, but with longer shipping times and potential quality concerns. By weighing the convenience of Spocket against the affordability of AliExpress, you can make an informed decision that suits your business best. Dive into this comparison to find out which platform aligns with your dropshipping goals. submitted by Soninetz to AllPromos [link] [comments] Useful Links: Key Takeaways
Dropshipping Supplier OverviewSupplier BaseSpocket offers a curated list of reliable suppliers, mainly from the US and Europe, ensuring faster shipping times. On the other hand, AliExpress boasts a vast network of multiple suppliers from around the world, providing a wide range of products.Product Range DiversitySpocket focuses on high-quality, unique products, ideal for niche markets, while AliExpress offers a plethora of products across various categories, including electronics, fashion, and more.https://preview.redd.it/s2k9eelctg1d1.png?width=794&format=png&auto=webp&s=7dbe0359b48074f71482f77a372dc1564761bc88 Start soaring 🚀 with Spocket's free trial! Dive into top products from US & EU suppliers today. Integration with eCommerce StoresBoth Spocket and AliExpress provide seamless integration with popular platforms like Shopify, enabling users to easily set up their online stores for business. This integration allows for automatic order processing and tracking, simplifying the dropshipping process.Cost ComparisonSubscription PlansSpocket offers three subscription plans: Starter, Pro, and Empire. The Starter plan costs $24 per month, Pro is $49 per month, and Empire is $99 per month. On the other hand, AliExpress does not require any subscription fees to access its platform.Associated CostsWhen it comes to additional costs, Spocket charges transaction fees ranging from 2% to 3% on each order. In contrast, AliExpress generally does not have transaction fees, making it more cost-effective for dropshippers.Implications for DropshippersSpocket: While Spocket's subscription plans may seem pricier than AliExpress upfront, the platform offers faster shipping times and higher-quality products. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and potentially higher profits for dropshippers.AliExpress: Despite being free to use, dropshippers need to consider longer shipping times and varying product quality when sourcing from AliExpress. This could impact customer retention rates and overall business success in the long run. Delivery Time EvaluationShipping TimesSpocket typically offers faster delivery times compared to AliExpress. With Spocket's focus on quality suppliers and efficient order fulfillment processes, customers can expect quicker shipping durations for their products.Customer Satisfaction ImpactFaster shipping times play a crucial role in enhancing customer satisfaction. When orders are delivered promptly, it leads to increased trust and loyalty from buyers. This positive experience encourages repeat purchases and boosts overall customer happiness.Useful Links: Reliability AssessmentBoth platforms have their strengths when it comes to shipping durations. While AliExpress may sometimes have longer shipping times due to the nature of its suppliers, Spocket stands out for its emphasis on quick and reliable shipping options such as epacket shipping. This ensures that customers receive their orders in a timely manner without compromising on product quality.User Experience AnalysisUser InterfaceSpocket offers a clean and intuitive user interface, making it easy for customers to navigate the platform effortlessly. On the other hand, AliExpress has a more cluttered interface, which can sometimes overwhelm users.Automation Level in Order FulfillmentSpocket excels in automation for order fulfillment and tracking, streamlining the process for customers. In contrast, AliExpress may have some manual steps involved, leading to potential delays.User Feedback and Satisfaction
Pros and ConsSpocketSpocket offers fast shipping from US and EU suppliers, ensuring quick delivery times for customers. The platform provides high-quality products with detailed product descriptions, enhancing the overall shopping experience. Spocket's excellent customer service is praised in user reviews.On the downside, Spocket's pricing plans might be a bit steep for beginners, impacting profit margins. Some users have faced complications with certain suppliers, leading to delays in order fulfillment. Despite these challenges, Spocket remains a popular choice for many dropshippers due to its premium product options. AliExpressAliExpress stands out for its vast product variety and low prices, making it an attractive option for dropshippers looking to offer a wide range of items. The platform also allows users to purchase products in small quantities, ideal for those starting with limited capital.However, the main drawback of AliExpress is the long shipping times, which can result in customer dissatisfaction. Quality control can be an issue as well, with some products not meeting expectations. Despite these drawbacks, AliExpress remains a go-to platform for dropshippers due to its extensive product selection. Closing ThoughtsAfter comparing Spocket and AliExpress in terms of dropshipping suppliers, costs, delivery times, user experiences, and pros and cons, you now have a clearer picture of what each platform offers. Consider your business needs, budget constraints, and customer expectations when selecting the right supplier. While AliExpress may provide lower costs, Spocket offers faster delivery times and a more curated selection of products. Ultimately, the choice between the two platforms depends on what matters most to you.Before making a decision, weigh the factors that are crucial for your business success. Take into account not only the financial aspects but also the overall customer experience you aim to deliver. By choosing the supplier that aligns best with your requirements, you can enhance your dropshipping business and provide better service to your customers. Time to thrive! 🌟 Unleash the power of Spocket's free trial and skyrocket your dropshipping journey. Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat is the main difference between Spocket and AliExpress for dropshipping?Spocket offers curated products from EU and US suppliers, ensuring faster shipping times and higher product quality. AliExpress has a vast range of products from Chinese suppliers at lower prices but with longer shipping times and potential quality issues.Which platform, Spocket or AliExpress, provides better user experience for dropshippers?Spocket's user-friendly interface, efficient order processing, and reliable customer support make it a preferred choice for dropshippers seeking convenience. In contrast, AliExpress may have more product variety but can be challenging to navigate due to multiple sellers and varying shipping times.How do the costs compare between using Spocket and AliExpress for dropshipping?While products on Spocket may have slightly higher prices compared to AliExpress due to better quality and faster shipping, the overall cost-effectiveness is often better with Spocket considering reduced customer service needs and potential for higher customer satisfaction.Which supplier, Spocket or AliExpress, offers quicker delivery times for dropshippers?Spocket typically provides faster delivery times compared to AliExpress due to its network of EU and US suppliers. This can lead to improved customer satisfaction, repeat business, and potentially lower shipping-related issues when using Spocket as a dropshipping supplier.What are the pros and cons of choosing between Spocket and AliExpress for dropshipping?Spocket's pros include quality products, faster shipping times, user-friendly interface. However, it might have slightly higher product costs. On the other hand, AliExpress offers lower-priced items but with longer shipping times and potential quality concerns due to multiple sellers.Useful Links: |
2024.05.20 01:09 Hazzaw20 The phantom Ferry
I remember the night vividly, even though it was years ago when I was twelve. My family and I were on an overnight ferry trip across a vast, dark expanse of water. The ferry was an old one, creaking and groaning as it cut through the waves, its once vibrant paint now faded and chipped. The sea was eerily calm, and a thick fog had settled over the water, making everything outside the ferry seem ghostly and surreal.
We had booked a small cabin, just big enough for the four of us. After a long day of traveling, we settled into our bunks, the rhythmic hum of the ferry's engines vibrating through the walls. My parents fell asleep quickly, and my younger sister dozed off with her teddy bear clutched tightly in her arms. But I lay awake, unable to shake an unsettling feeling.
It was sometime after midnight when I heard it—a soft, distant whisper. At first, I thought it was the wind, but the whispers grew louder, more insistent. It sounded like a conversation, but the words were muffled and indistinct, like they were being spoken underwater. I sat up in my bunk, straining to listen, but the whispers stopped.
I tried to tell myself it was just my imagination, but I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. I glanced around the dimly lit cabin, my eyes lingering on the shadows that seemed to dance and shift with the ferry's movements. I decided to get up and explore, hoping to find something to distract me from my unease.
I slipped out of the cabin, careful not to wake my family, and made my way down the narrow, dimly lit corridors of the ferry. The fog outside pressed against the windows, making the interior of the ship feel even more isolated. As I walked, I heard the whispers again, this time closer, echoing down the hallway.
Following the sound, I ended up on the deck. The fog was so thick I could barely see a few feet in front of me, and the cold, damp air chilled me to the bone. The whispers were louder now, unmistakably coming from somewhere nearby. My heart pounded as I crept toward the bow of the ferry, the source of the eerie voices.
As I rounded a corner, I saw them—two faint, translucent figures standing at the edge of the deck, their forms barely discernible through the mist. They were dressed in old-fashioned clothes, the kind you might see in a history book. The figures seemed to be in deep conversation, their whispers carrying a sadness that sent shivers down my spine.
I stood frozen, unable to move or speak. One of the figures turned and looked directly at me, its eyes hollow and filled with an indescribable sorrow. I wanted to run, to scream, but my legs felt like they were made of lead. The figure raised a hand, as if beckoning me closer, but I couldn't bring myself to move.
Suddenly, the ferry's horn blared, a loud, jarring sound that shattered the silence. The figures vanished as if they had never been there, leaving me alone on the foggy deck. I stumbled back inside, my heart racing, and rushed back to the cabin, where I buried myself under the blankets, trembling.
The next morning, the fog had lifted, and the sun was shining brightly. The ferry docked, and we disembarked, the events of the night before feeling like a distant, surreal dream. I didn't tell my family about what I'd seen, unsure if they'd believe me or think it was just a figment of my overactive imagination.
Years later, I learned that the ferry we had taken was rumored to be haunted by the spirits of two lovers who had perished in a tragic accident decades ago. Some say they still wander the decks, searching for each other in the fog. To this day, I can't shake the memory of those sorrowful eyes and the chilling whispers that echoed through the night.
submitted by Hazzaw20 to scarystories [link] [comments]
We had booked a small cabin, just big enough for the four of us. After a long day of traveling, we settled into our bunks, the rhythmic hum of the ferry's engines vibrating through the walls. My parents fell asleep quickly, and my younger sister dozed off with her teddy bear clutched tightly in her arms. But I lay awake, unable to shake an unsettling feeling.
It was sometime after midnight when I heard it—a soft, distant whisper. At first, I thought it was the wind, but the whispers grew louder, more insistent. It sounded like a conversation, but the words were muffled and indistinct, like they were being spoken underwater. I sat up in my bunk, straining to listen, but the whispers stopped.
I tried to tell myself it was just my imagination, but I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. I glanced around the dimly lit cabin, my eyes lingering on the shadows that seemed to dance and shift with the ferry's movements. I decided to get up and explore, hoping to find something to distract me from my unease.
I slipped out of the cabin, careful not to wake my family, and made my way down the narrow, dimly lit corridors of the ferry. The fog outside pressed against the windows, making the interior of the ship feel even more isolated. As I walked, I heard the whispers again, this time closer, echoing down the hallway.
Following the sound, I ended up on the deck. The fog was so thick I could barely see a few feet in front of me, and the cold, damp air chilled me to the bone. The whispers were louder now, unmistakably coming from somewhere nearby. My heart pounded as I crept toward the bow of the ferry, the source of the eerie voices.
As I rounded a corner, I saw them—two faint, translucent figures standing at the edge of the deck, their forms barely discernible through the mist. They were dressed in old-fashioned clothes, the kind you might see in a history book. The figures seemed to be in deep conversation, their whispers carrying a sadness that sent shivers down my spine.
I stood frozen, unable to move or speak. One of the figures turned and looked directly at me, its eyes hollow and filled with an indescribable sorrow. I wanted to run, to scream, but my legs felt like they were made of lead. The figure raised a hand, as if beckoning me closer, but I couldn't bring myself to move.
Suddenly, the ferry's horn blared, a loud, jarring sound that shattered the silence. The figures vanished as if they had never been there, leaving me alone on the foggy deck. I stumbled back inside, my heart racing, and rushed back to the cabin, where I buried myself under the blankets, trembling.
The next morning, the fog had lifted, and the sun was shining brightly. The ferry docked, and we disembarked, the events of the night before feeling like a distant, surreal dream. I didn't tell my family about what I'd seen, unsure if they'd believe me or think it was just a figment of my overactive imagination.
Years later, I learned that the ferry we had taken was rumored to be haunted by the spirits of two lovers who had perished in a tragic accident decades ago. Some say they still wander the decks, searching for each other in the fog. To this day, I can't shake the memory of those sorrowful eyes and the chilling whispers that echoed through the night.
2024.05.20 01:08 Stan_B Ai_Prompts_Batch_0001:\ part-E_ [ Resultset (\) ]
Would you have a concluding word to such world's setting?
Absolutely! Here are a few closing word options for your high-tech, low-life world, depending on the tone you want to achieve:Hopeful:
In the flickering neon glow of the lower districts, a spark of rebellion ignites. Despite the hardships, the human spirit endures, seeking connection, hope, and a chance to build a better future.Bittersweet:
The high towers of the elite cast long shadows over the bustling streets below. In this world of stark contrasts, the lines between survival and prosperity blur. But even in the darkest corners, love, ingenuity, and a flicker of defiance persist.Grim:
The gears of progress grind on, leaving a trail of waste and despair. In this high-tech dystopia, the gap between the haves and have-nots grows ever wider. Will the lower districts rise up, or will they be forever locked in the underbelly of a world they can only glimpse from below?Open-Ended:
Beneath the neon sky, stories unfold. Tales of hardship and hope, of rebellion and resilience. The future of this high-tech world hangs in the balance, waiting to be written by the choices of those who inhabit it.Choose the closing word that best captures the essence of your story or setting. Remember, the world you've created is rich with possibilities, and the ending doesn't have to be definitive. It can leave your readers pondering the fate of its characters and the future of this complex and ever-evolving society.
If you should pick an item or an object that would clearly and cleverly symbolized such world, what would that be?
Here are two options for an item that symbolically represents the high-tech, low-life world:- The Glimmering Shard:
- Description: Imagine a small, jagged shard of metal or glass. One side is smooth and polished, reflecting the wealth and technology of the upper city. The other side is rough and chipped, etched with the grime and harsh realities of the lower districts.
- Symbolism: This shard represents the stark contrast between the upper and lower classes. The smooth side reflects the shiny veneer of technology and luxury enjoyed by the wealthy. The rough side reflects the brokenness and struggle of those living on the fringes.
- Additional Details: This shard could be a salvaged piece of technology, a remnant of a shattered building, or even a shard of a mirrored window that once divided the social classes.
- The Glitching Holographic Ring:
- Description: Imagine a holographic ring that projects a constantly shifting image. On one hand, it might display a luxurious symbol of wealth and status. But as it flickers, the image might glitch and distort, revealing a hidden message or a glimpse of the harsh realities beneath the surface.
- Symbolism: This ring symbolizes the unreliability and instability of the world. The glitching hologram represents the way technology promises a utopian future but constantly fails to deliver. It also reflects the hidden messages of dissent and rebellion that exist beneath the surface of a seemingly controlled society.
- Additional Details: This ring could be a common fashion statement or a black-market tool used to spread forbidden information. The glitching image could be a coded message, a symbol of rebellion, or a reminder of the past that the upper class tries to suppress.
Try something bit more distinct and specific.
How about the "Hacked Heart"?Here's the breakdown:
- Description: A small, ornately decorated locket or pendant. Upon opening, it reveals not a picture, but a series of flickering LEDs embedded within a clear casing.
- Functionality: This locket is a bio-hacked implant worn externally. It interfaces with the wearer's nervous system, displaying a visual representation of their emotional state through the shifting colors and patterns of the LEDs.
- Symbolism: The Hacked Heart represents the constant clash between technology and humanity in this world. The ornate decoration speaks to a desire for beauty and connection, while the exposed circuitry highlights the invasive nature of technology and the commodification of even emotions.
- Distinction: This item is specific to this world because it combines high-tech bio-hacking with a sentimental object like a locket. It's a reminder that while technology can be used to manipulate and control, people still yearn for genuine emotional connection.
- Additional Details:
- The Hacked Heart could be a status symbol among the wealthy, a way to display their emotional control or volatility.
- In the lower districts, it might be a black-market modification, a way to express emotions freely or even manipulate others.
- The LEDs could display a limited range of emotions, a commentary on how this world suppresses or simplifies human experience.
How about straight up hacksawed hearth?
The "hacksawed hearth" is a very evocative image, but on its own, it might be a little too literal. Here are a few ways we can build on this concept to create a more symbolic and distinct object for your high-tech, low-life world:- The Hacksawed Hearth Relic:
- Description: This is a piece of a broken fireplace grate, crudely hacksawed from a larger structure. It could be made of cast iron, bearing the ornate detailing of a once grand fireplace from the upper city.
- Symbolism: The hacksawed hearth represents the loss of a sense of community and warmth. It's a reminder of a bygone era where people gathered around fireplaces for warmth, comfort, and storytelling. In the high-tech world, these connections are fragmented, replaced by cold technology.
- Use: The relic could be a prized possession, passed down through generations in the lower districts. It might be used as a makeshift heating element, a symbol of resilience, or even a weapon in desperate situations.
- Additional Details: Engravings or markings on the relic could hint at the origin of the fireplace, perhaps a symbol of rebellion or a reminder of a specific historical event.
- The Hacksawed Hearth Stove:
- Description: This is a makeshift stove cobbled together from scrap metal and scavenged parts. The centerpiece is a prominent, jagged piece of metal, clearly cut with a hacksaw, forming the base or firebox.
- Symbolism: The hacksawed hearth stove represents resourcefulness and defiance. It's a testament to the ingenuity of the lower classes, who repurpose the remnants of the upper world to survive and build a sense of home.
- Use: This stove provides heat and a place to cook for those in the lower districts. The exposed hacksaw mark could serve as a constant reminder of the struggle and the societal divide.
- Additional Details: The stove might be decorated with scavenged trinkets or symbols of rebellion, reflecting the personality of its creator.
- The Hacksawed Hearth Hologram:
- Description: This is a portable holographic projector that displays a flickering image of a crackling fireplace. The image might be distorted or glitching, hinting at the artificiality of the technology.
- Symbolism: The hacksawed hearth hologram represents a yearning for a lost sense of comfort and togetherness. It's a reminder of something they can't fully possess, a ghost of a simpler life.
- Use: The hologram could be used for warmth (a psychological comfort), storytelling (creating a sense of community), or even bartering (a valuable commodity in the lower districts).
- Additional Details: The projector might be a salvaged piece of high-tech, repurposed by the lower classes. The flickering image could project not just fire, but also forgotten stories or historical events.
Apologies, i meant hacksawed heart.
Ah, a "hacksawed heart" takes the concept a whole new level! Here are some potential interpretations for this unique symbol in your high-tech, low-life world:- The Literal Hacksawed Heart:
- Description: This is a gruesome yet intriguing object. Imagine a metallic heart-shaped locket, but instead of opening smoothly, it has a jagged, clearly "hacksawed" opening revealing a beating, pulsating red light within.
- Symbolism: It bluntly represents the harsh realities of this world. The exposed, almost violated heart symbolizes emotional vulnerability in a society that prioritizes survival and control.
- Use: This could be a black-market modification used by criminals to suppress or amplify emotions depending on their needs. It could also be a symbol of rebellion, worn by those who refuse to have their emotions controlled by technology.
- Additional Details: The exposed heart could change color or intensity depending on the wearer's emotional state. It could also be a painful reminder of past trauma or a forced emotional manipulation.
- The Hacksawed Heart Pendant (Metaphorical):
- Description: This is a more subtle pendant, crafted from metal and shaped like a stylized heart. However, the heart shape is not solid, but rather consists of a series of interlocking gears or circuits.
- Symbolism: It represents the struggle between technology and human emotions. The gears represent the cold logic of technology, while the overall heart shape represents the desire for connection and love.
- Use: This could be a widely worn piece of jewelry, a reminder of the delicate balance between technology and humanity.
- Additional Details: The gears could turn or click subtly, representing the constant hum of technology in the background. The design could be simple yet elegant, appealing to people from all social classes.
- The Hacksawed Heart Hologram:
- Description: This is a holographic projection of a broken heart, pulsating with a faint light. The cracks and breaks seem to have been repaired crudely, with rough stitches or patches.
- Symbolism: It represents the brokenness and resilience of the people in this world. The repaired heart shows their ability to mend emotional wounds and keep fighting despite hardships.
- Use: This could be a symbol used by resistance groups, a reminder that even though their hearts are broken by the system, they refuse to give up hope.
- Additional Details: The hologram could flicker and distort, highlighting the instability of the world and the struggle for emotional stability. It could also project messages of hope or defiance.
And how about hacksawed earth?
The "hacksawed earth" is a powerful and evocative image for your high-tech, low-life world. Here are a few interpretations that capture different aspects of this society:- The Broken Globe:
- Description: Imagine a metallic globe, the size of a person's head. One side is smooth and polished, depicting a pristine Earth with lush continents and oceans. The other side is brutally "hacksawed" open, revealing a desolate wasteland beneath.
- Symbolism: This broken globe represents the stark contrast between the idealized world presented by technology and the harsh realities of the lower districts. The smooth side shows the world as it could be, while the hacksawed side shows the damage caused by progress and a focus on the elite.
- Use: This could be a symbol used by rebels or environmentalists, a reminder of the true cost of unchecked technological advancement. It could also be a prized artifact kept by scavengers, a testament to a lost world.
- Additional Details: The hacksawed side could reveal specific details like polluted oceans, ravaged landscapes, or scars representing ecological disasters.
- The Cracked Terrain Model:
- Description: Imagine a detailed, three-dimensional model of the city and surrounding area. The model is crafted from metal and shows buildings, streets, and even the natural landscape. However, the model is cracked and broken in several places, revealing a dark, hollow space beneath.
- Symbolism: This cracked model represents the instability and fragility of the world. The surface world may appear organized, but it's built on a shaky foundation. The hollow space could represent the neglected lower districts or the potential for social upheaval.
- Use: This could be used by city planners to highlight potential areas of weakness or by rebels to show the vulnerability of the upper city. It could also be a symbol of the constant struggle between order and chaos.
- Additional Details: The cracks could be filled with glowing red lights, symbolizing the simmering anger and frustration of the lower classes.
- The Fractured Hologram:
- Description: Imagine a holographic projection of the Earth that constantly fractures and reforms. It shows a beautiful planet struggling to maintain its integrity, with cracks appearing and disappearing over continents and oceans.
- Symbolism: This fractured hologram represents the constant environmental degradation and the fragility of the planet itself. It's a reminder that the consequences of unchecked technology and environmental damage will affect everyone, not just the lower districts.
- Use: This could be a warning displayed in public spaces, a constant reminder of the need for sustainability. It could also be used by rebels to spread awareness of the environmental cost of their society.
- Additional Details: The fractured Earth could pulse with a red glow, symbolizing the danger of inaction. The projection could also display messages or statistics about environmental threats.
What would be the very best thing in such world?
The "best thing" in a high-tech, low-life world depends on perspective and what holds the most value for different people. Here are a few contenders:For the Struggling Masses:
- True Connection: In a world rife with social isolation and control, genuine connection with others – love, friendship, community – could be the most valuable thing. Sharing stories, offering support, and building a sense of belonging in the face of hardship could be a beacon of hope.
- Freedom from Oppression: The ability to escape the harsh realities of the lower districts, whether through rebellion, ingenuity, or a lucky break, could be considered the ultimate prize. Freedom could mean access to clean water, medical care, or a life free from fear and exploitation.
- Knowledge and Power: Unrestricted access to knowledge, either through scavenged books, hacked data, or forbidden information, could be a powerful tool for change. This knowledge could empower individuals to understand their world, resist control, or even find a path to a better future.
- Absolute Security: In a world filled with danger and uncertainty, complete security could be a luxury only the wealthy could afford. It could involve advanced security systems, fortified enclaves, or even enhanced bodies that ensure their safety from threats in the lower districts.
- Unlimited Luxury: Unfettered access to the latest technology, exotic pleasures, and the ability to indulge in every whim could be the ultimate goal for some. However, such a luxurious life might feel hollow in a world so divided.
- Power and Control: Maintaining absolute control over society and ensuring their dominance could be the ultimate prize for some in the elite. This control could involve advanced technology, manipulation of information, or even a form of social engineering that keeps the lower districts docile.
- A Spark of Change: Perhaps the most valuable thing wouldn't be a physical object or individual benefit, but the hope for a better future. It could be a growing sense of defiance, a technological breakthrough that could benefit everyone, or a leader who inspires change. Even in a harsh world, the potential for a brighter future could be the most valuable thing of all.
What would be the best possible symbol for high-tech-based dominance?
Here are a few options for a symbol of high-tech dominance in your world, each capturing a different aspect of technological control:- The Augmented Eye:
- Description: Imagine a stylized eye, perhaps metallic or with glowing circuitry. This symbol could be worn as a piece of jewelry, incorporated into clothing, or even projected as a hologram.
- Symbolism: The Augmented Eye represents the constant surveillance and monitoring of the population by the elite. It signifies the loss of privacy and the ability of the ruling class to see and control everything.
- Additional Details: The eye could have multiple pupils or flicker with different colors, representing the vast amount of data being collected and analyzed. It could also be embedded with a tiny camera, blurring the line between symbol and surveillance tool.
- The Neural Network Spire:
- Description: A towering structure, resembling a branching network of wires or organic neural pathways, reaching towards the sky. This spire could be located in the heart of the elite district, a visible symbol of their technological prowess.
- Symbolism: The Neural Network Spire represents the vast computational power and interconnectedness of the elite's technology. It suggests their ability to access information, control communication, and manipulate minds.
- Additional Details: The spire could emit a faint hum or glow, hinting at the constant processing power it represents. Its intricate design could be both awe-inspiring and intimidating, reflecting the duality of technology.
- The Glimmering Hand (Data Hand):
- Description: A stylized metallic hand, outstretched with its fingers spread wide. Each fingertip could have a different symbol or icon, representing different forms of data (statistics, surveillance footage, code).
- Symbolism: The Glimmering Hand represents the elite's ability to manipulate and control data. It signifies their power to shape information, influence perception, and control resources through technology.
- Additional Details: The hand could be made of a smooth, reflective metal, symbolizing the cold logic of data analysis. It could also emit faint streams of data or project holographic information, further emphasizing its control over information flow.
What would be the best set of symbols for resistance movements within such high-tech low-life settings?
In a high-tech, low-life world, symbols for a resistance movement need to be subtle, easily hidden, and adaptable to a world saturated with technology. Here are a few options that capture the spirit of rebellion in this unique setting:- The Flickering Flame:
- Description: A simple flickering flame, either a physical lighter or a stylized image. This could be a tattoo, a graffiti tag, or a hidden symbol incorporated into clothing or tools.
- Symbolism: The flickering flame represents hope and defiance against the cold, sterile control of the high-tech world. It symbolizes a yearning for a simpler life and the potential for change.
- Additional Details: The flame could be accompanied by a simple inscription or code that only members of the resistance understand. It could also be a specific color, like blue or orange, that signifies defiance.
- The Glitching Gear:
- Description: A stylized gear symbol, but with a section that appears to glitch or malfunction. This could be displayed on a data pad, worn as a pendant, or even etched onto tools or scavenged materials.
- Symbolism: The glitching gear represents the disruption of the established order. It signifies the resistance's ability to exploit the flaws in the high-tech system and their fight for a more organic, less controlled society.
- Additional Details: The glitching portion of the gear could flicker or change colors, representing the unpredictable nature of the resistance and their ability to adapt to new situations.
- The Broken Wing:
- Description: An image of a bird's wing, either broken or only partially formed. This could be a symbol of freedom yearning to be achieved, or the struggle of the resistance against the oppressive technological cage that confines them.
- Symbolism: The broken wing represents the desire for liberation and the belief that the people can rise above the control of the elite. It signifies the hope for a better future where freedom and autonomy are attainable.
- Additional Details: The broken wing could be depicted with feathers falling away, symbolizing the sacrifices made by the resistance. It could also be paired with an image of a rising sun, symbolizing a new dawn for society.
- The Hacked Flower:
- Description: A simple flower image, but with its petals made of circuit boards or technological components. This symbol represents the fusion of nature and technology, hinting at the resistance's fight for a more balanced future.
- Symbolism: The hacked flower represents the reclamation of beauty and nature in a world dominated by technology. It signifies the hope for a future where technology serves humanity, not the other way around.
- Additional Details: The flower could be a specific species native to the area before the rise of high-tech dominance. It could also be a symbol of a specific leader or movement within the resistance.
2024.05.20 01:05 IseKai_MC Origami above (almost) everyone - DAL vol 10 cover + some illustrations
 | Hello guys, since I read Date a Live, I realized that the novel has a certain quality that even more popular and cult novels do not have and that seems to go unnoticed by the fandom, the covers. Yes, the covers are spectacular and break away from the standard of most LNs, there is not just fanservice, there is not just a character striking a cool pose, we actually have covers with a certain visual narrative, whether a connection with the highlighted spirit itself or with the story itself and I will be pleased to show this to you, here are the rules: submitted by IseKai_MC to datealive [link] [comments]
https://preview.redd.it/erh6epoirg1d1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aff919953d6ba578e05b05deeb01f60b64a7bee0
Calm down, my boy, you haven’t missed anything, in fact I promised plot twists and we have one right on the cover. As for the spirit Origami, I want to draw attention to two things. The first is obviously her astral dress which is a wedding dress, each astral dress follows the taste of its spirit user and Origami as a child had the dream of being a wife, but there is much more than that, so this Astral Dress is a small hint of the main plot, this will become clearer in the Spirit Info topic. The second is about the facial expression, Origami looks like she is waking up, this may symbolize that she has just become a spirit, it may be a premonition of the plot of this volume, which deals with Origami discovering the truth about her past. But this expression will be referenced in a scene that will happen 7 volumes later, when we get there I will talk about it.
Again the subtitle cites the spirit’s surname, the other time this happened was in the volume 4, Sister Itsuka, clearly there is a connection here as the Tenguu-Nankou fire was a relevant event for both spirits, I also believe that the work opts to use surnames if we already know the spirit of the cover and the main reason is that Tobiichi is written with the character 1, let’s go to the next topic.
That is, Origami, among the spirits, is the closest to God. But it’s still too early to talk about this. And yes, spirit number 10 is on the cover of volume 1 and spirit number 1 is on the cover of volume 10, I would have liked to come here and say that I discovered this but Tachibana put this information in the afterword. Her codename is "Angel", again this word, the name of the angel is Metatron.
The scenario is a bit hidden, there are some debris there but nothing that allows to fully identify the scene but obviously there is a fire happening there, which is obviously a reference to that relevant event again, the great fire in Tenguu-Nankou. I don’t even need to say how relevant this event is to Origami’s life, in her first illustration in volume 1, she says: “Five years ago a spirit killed my parents.” Finally, in my opinion this is one of the best covers, again, just imagine you go to the convenience store to buy this newly released volume and find out that Origami is a spirit, just by the shock the value is already high, if you already know the story of the anime and stop to analyze the cover, the value is double the previous one, if you know the whole story of Date a Live, and try to analyze the cover in a deeper way, the value is the squared of the previous one. Let’s open the volume. {Illustration 2} https://preview.redd.it/c4ugx8zkrg1d1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d18e1c3a7176fb4e57acb7a7416e3183d5d526c7 There’s something different about this volume, the compositions have improved a lot, apparently a reflection of the success of the animation. The high school student and protagonist of this story, Shido Itsuka, says: “Tohka and the other girls just want a normal life.” But wait, Shido is tied to a chair in a strange room and there in the middle is a bottle of water. Ok, it seems that Origami really changed sides. The wizard who hates spirits is unyielding and responds that she will not only kill the spirits, “but also the entity that made me have a relationship with them.” In the middle of the illustration there is a crack in the wall, symbolic. {Illustration 3} https://preview.redd.it/7twwgnymrg1d1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=11bdb8e276eacb62eaf9ed7b353a704e5d8818c2 Another plot twist, Tohka is in full astral dress. And not only that, the spirit Tohka is making a declaration of hatred to Origami. “Origami Tobiichi, I have hated you from the beginning, but the hatred I feel for you now is probably different from the hatred I used to have before and for that reason, this time I will intend to kill you, don’t die, Origami.” Despite everything, this is a cute declaration because for the first time Tohka calls Origami by her name and not satisfied asks Origami to resist because even though she is angry, she does not want to kill Origami. Tohka will gain a little development in this volume, hence the illustration, we will talk about this scene later. {Illustration 4} https://preview.redd.it/e459j6oprg1d1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5bf272291179a955d8f2f06f1e7aea1bd4abcf4e Gentlemen, one of the best illustrations of DAL. The spirit Origami says: “Metatron!” Tohka says: “Origami, why did you become a spirit!?” In a great composition by Tsunako, Tohka and Origami are referencing the positions of their sephiroth in the tree of life. Origami appears in a superior position, distant from the “camera” and in front of the sun representing illumination, Kether, while the representative of the Kingdom, Malkhut, is in a much lower position, in the foreground and with her back to the reader. So, besides everything, they are staring at each other, symbolizing the mirroring already mentioned before. And speaking of mirroring, do you remember the illustration I asked you to keep? As I know I asked a lot I will make it easier for you, I am talking about the mono illustration number 9 of volume 2, I warned that that image would be mirrored and there it is. In the aforementioned image Origami was still wearing a basic CR Unit from AST and Tohka for the first time debuted in her limited astral dress, the reader’s angle, our angle, brought Origami almost back in the foreground, in the image now the camera position has inversed and now we are with the vision of Tohka. A great illustration but what generates more content here for sure are the illustrations of the table of contents, I’m sure the next one will please some people here. {Table of contents} https://preview.redd.it/pk2fbzqsrg1d1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a97157f277b2b04ba05100a26aa8f41b9d96d5a1 Look who’s back, Kurumi Tokisaki, it’s been a while since I’ve talked about “The worst spirit.” But there’s nothing enigmatic here, it’s just Kurumi from the back (we’ve seen and will see many backs in this volume) and as for the phrase, she just stole Kotori’s catchphrase, I’m sure she wouldn’t be happy if another character started saying “ara ara” around. Anyway, just having Kurumi here is hype enough because, whether you like the girl or not, just her being here is a sign that something relevant is going to happen. {Mono Illustration 5} https://preview.redd.it/q15slhcwrg1d1.jpg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b701c43f35ccc5fbfc6be162cd2d428c19ae3817 Ellen seems confident, on the other hand Kotori seems impatient. To ensure that Fraxinus does not interfere with Origami’s fight, Ellen plans to use the newest toy that DEM has manufactured, the Goetia ship (another name related to magic and occultism). Ellen and Kotori have a small dialogue where Shido’s sister tries to provoke THE STRONGEST WIZARD IN THE WORLD, but Miss Matthers is calm today, at least until she mentions Woodman. The duel is unavoidable. {Mono Illustration 6} https://preview.redd.it/0a44e2fzrg1d1.jpg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9f961966e5f536bd04af5f7325a8d7c98dcb9cce There is a lot to talk about here, let’s start with the context. Origami challenged the spirits Tohka, Yamais, and Miku to a fight to the death and by being equipped with the CR-Unit Mordred, Origami is able to build an advantage in the fight, she leaves Tohka unconscious and hurts the other 3 a lot, the former sergeant-major decides to start the killing by Yuzuru, precisely the spirit she got along with the most. It is at this moment that Tohka wakes up and seeing this whole scene she begins to go through the inversion process, but Tohka manages to interrupt this process, two passages stand out. “This power would not save anyone.” She didn’t want to save just Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Miku, she wanted to save Origami too. “She was an arrogant, violent, uneducated, and foul-mouthed girl, Tohka never knew what was going on in the mind of that girl who always bothered her. Even so, Tohka wanted to hold that girl’s hands.” Tohka says: “Shido, lend me your strength.” And she gets her full powers back. And so the two engage in a really cool fight, at this moment the narration becomes from Origami’s point of view, there is a detailing about the features of Mordred and the fighting movements, time passes a little and Origami begins to feel too confident. She begins to ramble about having the ability to kill spirits, she begins to think about the death of her parents, about what she saw in the DEM report of the fire in Tenguu-Nankou. Clearly Origami is not well, finally her body collapses and we have an illustration. Now talking about the illustration itself, this is a reference to Mono Illustration 2 of volume 1, whose differences I highlight now. The most obvious difference is about Tohka who is no longer with that serious and empty look, here Tohka is clearly angry and screaming, in a way such expressiveness demonstrates how much this girl has developed. Still about Tohka, this time it is she who is making an attack movement, but there is no blood in this image, an indication that it was not an attack to kill. The other difference is about Origami, in that illustration I quote how much the “expressionless” Origami demonstrated tension, effort, and pressure, and I highlight the drop of sweat on her face. Something we can’t do here because this time Origami is with her back to the “camera” not allowing us to see her eyes. “The eyes are the window to the soul” So not showing the eyes is a strong symbolism, you can’t read the person’s emotions, you can’t even recognize the person, humanity is taken from the person and about this, this is the last illustration in which Origami Tobiichi is still human, because… {Mono illustration 7} https://preview.redd.it/1x6bx464sg1d1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b88de0aa5fbe00002ce78523b449d149d102302f Origami became a spirit. “Hey, is it power that you desire?” “What are you?” Origami used [What] instead of [Who] in reflex. [It] might have guessed what she meant and laughed as if it found it funny. “What I am doesn’t matter now.” After becoming spirit Origami, without delay, she goes to Tohka and then we have the illustration which is of Origami using Metatron’s Shemesh skill. {Mono Illustration 9} https://preview.redd.it/43ary5y9sg1d1.jpg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=25ec601b07e71cd20bc3f1061f2dd8f32daa25df Ara, ara. Origami was so crazy that it was only after seeing Shido and running away from there that this girl began to understand the points, mainly about who gave her the spirit powers, the mysterious “Phantom”. She reflects a little more and realizes that a certain spirit may have the ability to go back in time. About the illustration itself, another beautiful composition by Tsunako, in it we can contemplate Kurumi, apparently on a terrace, with building lights, Kurumi appears joyful in seeing Origami. “It’s been a long time, Origami-san!” As for Origami, again she is with her back turned and carrying a clone of Kurumi. The anime softened but here in the novel Origami seems to have returned the “affection” that Kurumi had done to her in volume 3 in the form of a very strong “massage”. But the clone does not seem to have liked it. “I did not come here to fight.” “Among the 12 bullets, is there one that can go back in time?” Kurumi makes a little suspense but answers that, yes, there is, Origami asks her to lend her this bullet. At first Kurumi denies, but since we are talking a little more about the Kabbalah, the Sephiroth of the worst spirit is Binah, the understanding, realizing that Tobiichi would not leave there without a “yes” as an answer Kurumi asks “why?” “I want to go back 5 years and kill the spirit that killed my parents.” At this moment the narration enters Kurumi’s thoughts, she begins to think that Origami came to her because she felt so invincible and therefore would force Kurumi to do what she wants, if necessary. But then Kurumi begins to think that it was just a miscalculation by the girl, a miscalculation caused by the temptation to change the past. “And Kurumi understood so much that it even hurt.” Kurumi accepts but will not do this for free, time travel would cost a lot of lifetime, but that would not be a problem since now Origami has plenty of it. {Mono Illustration 10} https://preview.redd.it/fyubgawdsg1d1.jpg?width=766&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e79e4113ca1068c56d0cf786c3ab77843b720e36 Origami discovered the harsh truth. She really went to the past, had a brief fight with Phantom, managed to be the first to take off Phantom’s "mask", also managed to hear Phantom’s real voice, and when she thought she had also managed to save her parents, when she looked down there was a little girl swearing Origami to death, the little girl was Origami herself 5 years ago. “I will definitely kill you!” “Who killed… my father and my mother… Was me…”
First of all, it’s a volume full of plot twists, Shido in private imprisonment, Origami fighting with the intention to kill 4 spirits at once, Fraxinus being defeated by Ellen’s Goetia, Tohka returning to use a full astral dress, Origami becoming a spirit, Origami going to the past, Origami facing Phantom, Origami killing her own parents, the illustrations end there but there’s still a lot of content, Origami inverts, Inverse Origami destroys all of Tenguu City and finally Kurumi going to Shido, Shido also being sent to the past. Entertainment and tension are not lacking here. Did you notice that the lore makes a lot of references to the first volumes? This volume also makes a point of rewarding the reader for all this time following the story, the plot twist of Origami for example, was foreshadowed back in Volume 1, when she aims at Tohka but hits and "kills" Shido, from there a big hint that Origami has the bad habit of killing, by accident, the people she loves the most. Origami was not the only character developed here, Tohka also grows and thanks the Shido’s ideology, at no time did she deny the existence of Origami and even though she said she was going to attack to kill she asked Origami not to die. Although short, Kurumi had a great participation and we were able to learn more about her and for someone who is known as “the worst spirit” she was quite kind. The only impediment for Volume 10 to sit alongside the best volumes of DAL is because most of the answers are in the next volume and when we take into consideration what both have to offer, the overall impression about Volume 10 improves, after all there is a big cliffhanger for Volume 11. Origami managed to take off Phantom’s “mask” and even hear her voice, with that we can know that Phantom is a girl and is someone Origami knows, that is, she is also someone we know. That’s it, Origami was a spirit all this time, and next we will find out how Shido and Kurumi will solve this mess. Finally, stay with this iconic phrase that Origami says in this volume, the phrase says a lot about many things in DAL. “I will now wield this power to defeat the Spirits. I will become the Spirit that kills Spirits. Once I eliminate all Spirits────I will erase the last one, me”. Previous Reviews. -volume 1 - The color of the Night. - volume 2 - Yoshinon and the Rain. - volume 3 - The smile of Kurumi. - volume 4 - Sister or Girlfriend? - volume 5 - Yamais - volume 6 - Lilies, she likes - volume 7 - The Dark of the Night. - volume 8 - What do people do on Halloween? - volume 9 - Natsumi Without Costume |
2024.05.20 01:00 Any-Illustrator-4972 Built up resentment towards a guy I didn’t even date
Hey everyone, don’t even know what I’m looking for maybe just someone to listen to me and just to get this out but here goes: (LONG POST AHEAD!)
I’m 22 years old and just graduated college. I’ve been with my current bf for almost 3 years now since 2021. Before meeting him, I had a thing with this guy I met at work when I was 18-19 in 2019. I started talking to him when I started working there and we kept flirting everyday, messaging and so on. I really fell for him and we kept texting. at that point I was very innocent and had always been only focused on school and my grades. I had never kissed or had sex with anyone or even had a bf before. But when I finally met him, for the first time ever I felt inclined to do more and would always get excited when he would come into work and I was completely blind to everything else.
This flirting and messaging went on for a few months until one day he waited for me to get off work and walked me to my car outside in the parking lot and asked to kiss me. I felt so incredibly happy and so alive. My first kiss, It was amazing and so full of love. We waved and signed little hearts at the stop light by the place we worked at and went home.
A few days later he asked me to come over and I agreed. I came over and we were in his room playing around just talking and he started being touchy. We ended up just making out and then he went down on me. (He asked for permission and I gave consent and I was even more into him after that)
We kept texting and talking at work but he would always text me only at random times and always make things sexual or ask me questions about how much experience I had and he knew I was a virgin. He knew he was my first kiss. He knew everything. I liked him so much I would reply and send pictures and do everything because I LOVED him. Something else to mention, while this was going on, at the time my dad was in jail and my family life wasn’t in the best place (which he didn’t know of) but I would work longer shifts to try to make extra money and was just looking to get away from home.
Months past and things kept escalated as he would continue to ask for pictures and I would ask him if he even liked me and what he truly wanted with me and he would never directly answer me. COVID hit and then we were quarantines. We sort of kept texting but it sort of stopped and I was very upset. I lived in a small town so everything opened up by August and we went back to work. We started talking again and one day he asked me to come over. I did and in the back of my mind I knew what was going to happen. I went in and I could tell he was high (which he was often and weirdly when I asked him one time that I wanted to try it he told me not to and that he didn’t want me to ever do it like why try and be protective over it). He led me down to his room and put me on the bed and took my clothes off and aggressively started having sex with me. During this I did not say one word, he would pick me up and move me to different positions and it hurt so bad I told him to not be too hard and to stop but he told me to “take it” and I did. At the end I was facing down on the bed and I looked down to see blood on the sheets. He freaked out and got mad at me and told me to put my clothes on and to leave.
I had work right after and so did he. I went in and kept checking the time and my phone and he never showed up. I guess that was the last time we spoke to each other because I checked my phone again to see that I was left on read. I felt so stupid and used and disgusting. After that I went on a party spiral and began getting drunk all the time and going out with a lot of guys. This “phase” was me trying to take my power back from him and get out my anger. But the point is, now I’m with my bf of 3 years who is sweet and kind but is the complete opposite of this first person I ever had an experience with. Why do I sometimes still feel like I’m not over what happened? Why do I often go back to that place and ask why did he do that why can’t I just move on?
submitted by Any-Illustrator-4972 to Advice [link] [comments]
I’m 22 years old and just graduated college. I’ve been with my current bf for almost 3 years now since 2021. Before meeting him, I had a thing with this guy I met at work when I was 18-19 in 2019. I started talking to him when I started working there and we kept flirting everyday, messaging and so on. I really fell for him and we kept texting. at that point I was very innocent and had always been only focused on school and my grades. I had never kissed or had sex with anyone or even had a bf before. But when I finally met him, for the first time ever I felt inclined to do more and would always get excited when he would come into work and I was completely blind to everything else.
This flirting and messaging went on for a few months until one day he waited for me to get off work and walked me to my car outside in the parking lot and asked to kiss me. I felt so incredibly happy and so alive. My first kiss, It was amazing and so full of love. We waved and signed little hearts at the stop light by the place we worked at and went home.
A few days later he asked me to come over and I agreed. I came over and we were in his room playing around just talking and he started being touchy. We ended up just making out and then he went down on me. (He asked for permission and I gave consent and I was even more into him after that)
We kept texting and talking at work but he would always text me only at random times and always make things sexual or ask me questions about how much experience I had and he knew I was a virgin. He knew he was my first kiss. He knew everything. I liked him so much I would reply and send pictures and do everything because I LOVED him. Something else to mention, while this was going on, at the time my dad was in jail and my family life wasn’t in the best place (which he didn’t know of) but I would work longer shifts to try to make extra money and was just looking to get away from home.
Months past and things kept escalated as he would continue to ask for pictures and I would ask him if he even liked me and what he truly wanted with me and he would never directly answer me. COVID hit and then we were quarantines. We sort of kept texting but it sort of stopped and I was very upset. I lived in a small town so everything opened up by August and we went back to work. We started talking again and one day he asked me to come over. I did and in the back of my mind I knew what was going to happen. I went in and I could tell he was high (which he was often and weirdly when I asked him one time that I wanted to try it he told me not to and that he didn’t want me to ever do it like why try and be protective over it). He led me down to his room and put me on the bed and took my clothes off and aggressively started having sex with me. During this I did not say one word, he would pick me up and move me to different positions and it hurt so bad I told him to not be too hard and to stop but he told me to “take it” and I did. At the end I was facing down on the bed and I looked down to see blood on the sheets. He freaked out and got mad at me and told me to put my clothes on and to leave.
I had work right after and so did he. I went in and kept checking the time and my phone and he never showed up. I guess that was the last time we spoke to each other because I checked my phone again to see that I was left on read. I felt so stupid and used and disgusting. After that I went on a party spiral and began getting drunk all the time and going out with a lot of guys. This “phase” was me trying to take my power back from him and get out my anger. But the point is, now I’m with my bf of 3 years who is sweet and kind but is the complete opposite of this first person I ever had an experience with. Why do I sometimes still feel like I’m not over what happened? Why do I often go back to that place and ask why did he do that why can’t I just move on?
2024.05.20 00:56 orangeplr I believed in fairies as a kid. I think something terrible happened to me
I believed in fairies as a kid. More than believed in them. I think something terrible happened to me, and I've just buried it until now.
Call me a typical emotion-bottling man, but I have never considered therapy. No matter what I went through, no matter how many times I thought to myself, verbatim, that I should talk to someone about this, I just never thought of it as an option. It simply wasn't on my roster. It was just one of those things that existed on a separate plane of existence than I was living in, never to cross paths or interact lest the universe collapse in on itself.
I have no problem with therapy, don't get me wrong. It isn't like I don't understand the overall appeal. I have plenty of friends who swear by it, swear it has helped them tremendously, including my wife. It just wasn't ever something I thought was in my cards.
"I just never really thought about it," I told Alice one evening, when she had brought the topic up once again after dinner.
There was a serene sense of peace wafting through the entire house that day, and I was feeling content. It was a Sunday, and swimming season, so we had dropped Emmie off that morning at the public pool for practice and gone straight to our favorite breakfast place. The rest of the day was filled with all the conversation that had built up over the week, all the topics we couldn't fully dig into with each other while babysitting our eight year old, and lounging, all crammed in between sporadic bursts of housework and paperwork we had to catch up on. It was the perfect day, in my humble opinion. It was a lovely moment of peace in the midst of a chaotic life, as is life with kids. And now the sounds of Mario Kart drifted in from the living room, Emmie's squeals cutting through the cheery music every now and then, causing Alice and I to share small smiles of acknowledgement.
Oh, to be a child again. Still a little drenched from a post-swimming shower, full of chili, eyes glowing with the reflection of a television screen.
"Well, maybe you should." My wife was scooping leftover chili into a Tupperware with a ladle. Her hair had been tied up like it was every day after dinner, as if she planned to run a marathon rather than do the cleaning up. She wasn't looking at me, dialed into the task at hand.
It's crazy how some parts of my memory could be so good, and others nonexistent.
I reached over from where I stood before the dishwasher, sliding my arm around her waist. She gave me a look, like, what?
"I just don't think it's for me, babe," I muttered, resting my mouth on her shoulder as if I was trying to skip her ears and speak right through her skin. "You know those things make me uncomfortable sometimes."
She let out a half groan, half sigh, setting down the container and the ladle and turning to face me, draping her arms over my shoulders.
"Everything makes you uncomfortable, John."
I smiled, letting my hands fall to her hips. I knew her frustrated act was just that, an act, at least for the most part.
"It's good for you," she continued pointedly, reaching up to tap her pointer finger against my forehead as I swayed her back and forth to a nonexistent tune. "Like medicine. And I know for a fact there are some things you need to work through."
I feigned offense. "You think I'm some kind of nut job?"
"Everyone needs therapy," she snarled, pulling out of my arms, but she didn't resist when I reached out and drew her back in. "Not just nut jobs."
And that was how most of those conversations went. Some got a little more heated, ending with a lightly slammed door (so as not to wake our daughter) and a whisper-shout of "this is why you need therapy!"
I feel I'm making it sound bad, but it wasn't. Even our more serious fights never quite felt like fights. They felt like playing. We were like two cats, biting and tackling and swishing our tails, but never baring our teeth to hiss. I never felt genuine, full-bodied anger towards her, and I knew she felt the same. It sounds sappy, but we were just very in love. I sometimes felt that we had never actually left the honeymoon phase.
I'm also making it sound like that conversation was incredibly common, and it wasn't. It came up maybe once every few months. I knew she was just looking out for me. She knew me better than anyone.
We had met through mutual friends, and we had initially bonded over our terrible childhoods. We both had moms who were out of the picture, and over emotional, over compensating dads, although this manifested in vastly different ways. Alice's mother left her father for a D-list rockstar type, following him on his state wide tour. She would sometimes send Alice letters or postcards from the road, although her dad wouldn't always let her keep them if they seemed to be stained with blood or seemed to have made contact with any strange white powders.
Her dad coped with anger. He never laid a hand on her, but his shouting and the sounds of glass bottles smashing against the walls kept her up almost every night. During the days he'd take her out, buy her things, go mini golfing and bowling and to the movies. Anything to seem more fun than her mother.
My mother passed away on my seventh birthday. She was driving home from work, which was at a law firm half an hour away from our house, when it began to rain. She was texting my dad her ETA when she ran a red light and a semi truck T-boned her, completely obliterating her car.
After that, everything changed. My seventh birthday could've been my twenty-first. At night it was the worst. I remember sitting with my dad as he cried, curled up in a sobbing ball on the filthy living room carpet, whimpering like a kicked puppy. He would scream and wail so loud the walls shook. He would say, over and over as if I wasn't hearing him, sometimes mumbling and sometimes shrieking, "She was cut in half. I'm sorry sir, she's gone. No, there's no chance she survived, she was completely cut in half."
The days were almost worse. During the day, when he could decrease the helpless wails into weeping at the very least, his attention turned to me. He tried to get something out of me, almost silently begging me to break down with him. Every other second it was, "How are you feeling, son? Do you understand what's happening? You poor thing, you must be devastated, your mommy is gone... Don't you want to cry?"
But I couldn't indulge, and I didn't want to. I had to wash the sheets, because he'd pissed them again, and I didn't want him to sleep in it and smell like pee when he took me to school the next day. I had to vacuum the carpet, so the next time he curled up on it and begged God to take him too, when he finally stood up, his cheek wouldn't be caked in crumbs and dust.
I don't know if I ever truly mourned. My mother's death was more like an absence, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and carved a chunk out of my side, or snipped off a limb. I could still feel her, I could still talk to her, but all I got back was a deep ache and a crushing silence.
I hated how people reacted when I told them my mom was dead, and had been since I was a little boy. I hated the looks on their faces when they asked how she died, and when I told them. How their mouths fell open dumbly and their eyebrows twisted and contorted in sympathetic horror. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know," they said, as if there was vomit rising in their throats, and I wanted to say, "Well, you fucking asked, didn't you?"
Alice never reacted like that. In fact, she never really even asked me what happened. We were on our second date, nursing beers while leaning against the pool table a a dingy speakeasy, when she told me about her own mom. It was the first time in a long time I actually felt like the conversation was open, like I could respond and she would listen and care, but not too much. Not an uncomfortable amount. When I told her about my parents she didn't say anything, and her pretty face didn't contort. She leaned over the corner of the pool table and kissed me on the cheek, took my hand.
The day she found out she was pregnant, we promised each other to be better, to not let our child ever have to grieve alone or feel the very specific hopeless terror that only a parent can cause.
So maybe I should have listened to her. Maybe I should have gone to therapy the first time she brought it up, the first time she told me how it had helped her get through her own terrible memories. But if I'm being honest, I didn't think I had anything to get through. I had left it in the past, I had coped so far in my own somewhat crooked way, I didn't want to dig any of that back up. I didn't want to be put back in that place where I was expected to talk, to cry, to open up. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
"I was always the therapist," I would say to her with a crooked grin. "And I like it that way."
Then, the dreams started.
I could tell you I don't know what triggered them, I don't know why it was now. But that wouldn't be the truth. I know exactly why I started to remember.
At first, they were brief. Nightmares that I couldn't quite recall or explain, waking up disoriented and a little sick. The rest of my day would feel strange, like I was surrounded by a thick fog. Eventually, they started to wake me up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and screaming, scaring the shit out of my wife. Once I ran to the bathroom and threw up, barely making it to the toilet. That was when the word "therapy" came up again.
It feels like I've been in a coma for twenty years, and I'm just waking up now.
It's so strange how different the world looks to a child.
I believed in fairies as a kid. Laugh it up if you want. When I turned four, my aunt brought me this book - we've all had one, I think. It was one of those huge hardcover books filled with information about something mythical, with little patches of fabric to simulate a mermaid's scales or a dragon's claw.
Mine was about fairies, and it was so real to me. My mom would sit up with me later than she probably should have, reading to me, placing my hand on the textures to feel. I wanted to know everything about them, I became obsessed, and naturally, my parents played along. They bought me toys, books... every year I had a fae themed birthday cake, and any kid who dared to giggle behind their hands weren't invited to next year's celebration.
When I was old enough to use the internet, supervised of course, I began further research. My mom helped me navigate Wikipedia first, and they had plenty of information to sustain me for a while. My interest turned from wings and magical powers to different types of fae from every corner of the earth, mushroom rings and their alleged distaste for iron. While I still wasn't very good at reading, I would just look at the pictures until she got home from work.
When my mom died, the fairy memorabilia began to amp up. My aunt bought me new books, gave them to me wrapped and tied with ribbons with tear filled eyes, and my dad brought them up whenever he thought I needed comforting and felt strong enough to leave the house. "Wanna go look in the forest for fairies, son?"
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I began to worship the fairies. I was convinced they lived in the forest behind my house, just behind each tree I looked at, hiding from me. I would spend my weekends escaping into the woods with a bucket and a cheap pair of binoculars, positive that this time, this day, I would see one.
At night, when my dad finally passed out in his own puddle of tears and other bodily fluids, I would pray to them. I never believed in God, we weren't a particularly religious family, and besides, I had seen what good He had done for my dad thus far. But I believed in the fairies.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
They never answered.
Until they did.
It was a Friday. I remember now, I'm not sure how I could have forgotten. After school I had sprinted into the shade of the trees before my dad could stop me, gripping the hem of my shirt in my fist, the thin fabric bearing the weight of two handfuls of the shiniest silverware and most colorful buttons I could find in our dusty cabinets.
I had a plan that day. I was going to lure them to me.
My path began in a clearing where I thought a ring of mushrooms may have begun to grow... but even without that, it was just the perfect spot for fairies. I could picture them flitting between the trees, chirping to each other happily, picking wildflowers to weave into flower crowns.
I walked backwards all the way back to my bedroom window, dropping another item every few steps. When I got inside and looked out my window, I could see my trail of shiny things curve through the overgrown grass in our backyard and disappear into the trees.
I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. Tonight, surely, they would come to me. They would show themselves, and they would help me. But after another few late hours of coddling my father, finally convincing him to drink some water and get in bed, I was exhausted. I completely forgot about my plan. When I got to my room I collapsed on my mattress, not even bothering to undress before I closed my eyes.
Then I heard it. The scratching.
I opened my eyes. The moonlight shining through my bedroom window casted strange shadows across my ceiling, shadows of the swaying grass and the creaking trees.
It was strangely silent, other than the sound. Usually there was lots of noise, or at the very least a few crickets, but not tonight. Tonight, I realized, I couldn't even hear the wind.
I sat up slowly, as if in a dream, and looked toward my window. I couldn't see anything out there, nothing glaringly obvious at least, that could be making that noise.
The scratching turned to a tap. Tap tap tap, like a fingernail against a glass. It had a playful air to it, like someone was saying, look over here!
I stood, rubbing my eyes, and stumbled over. The tapping stopped abruptly when I got to the window and peered outside, out to the dark yard, pitch black if not for the moon's glow. The grass didn't sway, the trees didn't creak. I frowned and unlatched the window, sliding it up above my head.
I was right, there was no wind. Not even a gust. Everything was still outside, like it was frozen. I actually started to believe it was frozen, that time had stopped completely somehow, before I saw it.
My trail of silverware and buttons. Sparkling softly in the moonlight.
Disappearing.
It began where the path met the trees, curving off where I couldn't follow it anymore. A fork disappeared right before my eyes, right on the edge. Just vanished, as if someone who was invisible had picked it up and stuffed it in a pocket very quickly.
Then another went, a spoon. Then a particularly large gold button. Whatever was taking them was doing what I had wanted, it was taking my bait, it was coming to me. And it was as if whatever had tapped at my window had wanted me to see this, wanted to show me.
But something felt very, very wrong.
This wasn't how I had pictured it. There was no twinkling, tiny winged thing at my window, winking at me before dashing back into the safety of the trees. There were no secrets being whispered in my ear, no fairy dust or promises of better things.
Something about this wasn't right. It felt like a mimicry, almost a mockery, of what I had imagined. Like something was trying to give me what I wanted, but was rusty at it.
I didn't want this anymore.
My stomach twisted and my hands shook as I pulled the window back down slowly, watching more glittery things disappear from the grass, growing closer and closer. As soon as it was closed I quickly locked it and pulled the blinds shut, turning my back to the window as if something would happen that I didn't want to see.
Nothing happened. The deafening silence continued for a few seconds as my ears strained to hear anything else happening outside. Then the wind picked up, and the sounds of crickets, muffled by my closed window, filled the night air.
I don't remember when I fell asleep that night, I just know I felt unnerved and jumpy for a while. I woke up the next morning feeling guilty. Had the fairies really come last night? Maybe they had come to talk to me, to bring me gifts, favors, and what had I done? I had closed my window on them. I felt ungrateful. Why had I even been scared? Because it was dark outside? What was I, a baby?
When I opened my window and peered outside, I gasped. The trail of silverware and buttons was completely gone, all the way up to the last one, which I had placed on my windowsill. In its place was a shoe. I didn't know what kind of shoe it was, but it looked sort of nice, fancy. I remember smiling out the window as I opened it, as if they were looking, and taking my gift.
How could I forget that night? How could I have forgotten what happened after? I feel crazy, either like I made it all up or like I've made up everything since then, like my life isn't truly my own.
I remember telling my dad. I remember saying, "Dad, the fairies came last night!" and the absent smile he gave me.
Until I showed him their gift. The shoe. Instantly his face went pale and he snatched it from my hands, staring at me as if I was something unholy.
"Where did you get this, Johnny?"
"The fairies, dad, I told you!"
He didn't respond. Just gave me another long, solemn look, before turning away from me, still holding the present I received close to his chest. I was upset, but I knew better than throwing a tantrum. That would be too much emotion anyways, too uncomfortable. Even back then, I didn't know how to handle those things.
I didn't show him their gifts after that. I didn't want to risk having them taken away. I tried not to be scared of the fairies, even though they always came at night, but I didn't go to my window when they came anymore. I read everywhere that fairies didn't particularly like to be seen, even though this one seemed to want to be. It always began with tapping, but otherwise complete silence that almost felt like it was swallowing me... and eventually the tapping would stop, the silence would pass, and I would fall asleep. In the morning there was always another gift for me, sitting on my window sill. A sparkly gold ring, the other matching shoe, a hat... I smiled when I took every one, wanting them to know I was grateful. And I would leave things for them too, little sweets or shiny things like coins or paperclips that I found on the ground at school.
Things seemed to get better with my dad for a while. He kept to himself more, he was quieter. At night he would cry softly in his room, rather than his uproarious wails that I used to have to quell so the neighbors wouldn't come knocking. During the day, he would talk to me, but more casually. He didn't ask me how I was feeling anymore, or tell me to let it out.
I hoped this was the fairies. I felt invincible, like I had a secret superpower that no one knew about. I was friends with fairies.
Then one night, everything changed.
It started with the tapping, as always. That night I was fast asleep, catching up on well earned rest since the nightly therapy sessions had ceased.
The tapping woke me. It was that loud. It was louder than usual... but it seemed like it stopped abruptly as soon as I raised my head to look.
That was different...
That night, I had left my blinds up and my window open by accident. Since that first night, even though I wasn't scared anymore, I had always closed them... but this time, I must have forgotten.
It was silent outside. It seemed darker than usual. I could almost make out something, a shape, way on the other side of the yard, but it was too dark and I was too far away to tell.
That feeling from that first night retuned. A twisting like a hand reaching into my stomach and mixing things around, a heavy feeling in my chest like someone had stolen all of the air from my room, even though the window was open. The silence seemed to crush me, bearing down on me from every angle, making my ribs hurt.
The feeling that something was very wrong.
I don't remember deciding to stand: looking back, I have no idea why I would do that in my state of fight or flight. I don't know if I consciously chose to. I don't remember walking over, but I remember getting there, my hands on the windowsill and my head poking out into the completely still night air.
There was something there. On the edge of the trees. Right where I had seen that first fork disappear into thin air. I squinted, leaning further into the darkness to try and make out what it was.
When I finally did, the outline taking shape as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to shake uncontrollably. I remember that I tried to scream, but no sound would come. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything but stare.
Two legs stood in front of the trees, facing me. Two legs, a blood-soaked pair of slacks, no shoes on the purple, swollen feet. And a jagged, violent rip in the torso where the rest of my mother's body had been severed from its lower half.
It took me a while to realize that the legs weren't standing on their own. They began to move, jerking clumsily toward the window, like something I couldn't see was struggling to hold them up. I finally forced myself out of my trance and fell to my carpet, vomiting.
I don't remember much else about that night yet. My dad came running when I started crying, I'm sure, but he didn't see what I saw. My mom's legs were gone, or hidden. Because they weren't for him.
They were for me.
We moved after that. Before now if you had asked me why we moved so far away so suddenly, I probably would have mumbled something about the grief, and it being too hard to stay where my mother had died. But I remember why now.
It was because the next morning, when I checked my windowsill, there was a hand. My mother's hand. Purple and stiff, and missing her gold wedding ring. Reaching, fingers rested against the glass, like it was trying to get in.
Like it had been tapping.
I don't want to think about what else it might have brought, had we stayed.
That thing, whatever it was, wasn't my mother, and it wasn't a fairy. I had invited something else with all my praying, with all my naive and innocent beliefs, and with all my bottled up emotions. I had invited it, and I had let it in.
And then I had forgotten everything. Maybe I bottled that up, too.
Now I remember. Now I'm having nightmares, and waking up with that sick feeling in my gut, my eyes jumping to our closed bedroom window.
Because a week ago, my daughter woke me up very early in the morning my jumping on our bed. A week ago, she shook me awake, her eager smile stretching all the way across her face. A week ago, she told me, "Dad, the fairies came last night!"
She showed me a doll, a ballerina, with a pink tutu and beautiful long blonde hair.
And now, with all these terrible memories hitting me like cold water to the face, only one keeps me awake at night.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
It has granted two of my wishes, in its own twisted way. My father grew distant from me and my mother was brought back in pieces.
I'm happy now. But I don't have peace. I don't think I'll ever fully have peace, at least not with a child and a wife to try and provide for, and not with all of these memories.
So what has it come back for?
submitted by orangeplr to nosleep [link] [comments]
Call me a typical emotion-bottling man, but I have never considered therapy. No matter what I went through, no matter how many times I thought to myself, verbatim, that I should talk to someone about this, I just never thought of it as an option. It simply wasn't on my roster. It was just one of those things that existed on a separate plane of existence than I was living in, never to cross paths or interact lest the universe collapse in on itself.
I have no problem with therapy, don't get me wrong. It isn't like I don't understand the overall appeal. I have plenty of friends who swear by it, swear it has helped them tremendously, including my wife. It just wasn't ever something I thought was in my cards.
"I just never really thought about it," I told Alice one evening, when she had brought the topic up once again after dinner.
There was a serene sense of peace wafting through the entire house that day, and I was feeling content. It was a Sunday, and swimming season, so we had dropped Emmie off that morning at the public pool for practice and gone straight to our favorite breakfast place. The rest of the day was filled with all the conversation that had built up over the week, all the topics we couldn't fully dig into with each other while babysitting our eight year old, and lounging, all crammed in between sporadic bursts of housework and paperwork we had to catch up on. It was the perfect day, in my humble opinion. It was a lovely moment of peace in the midst of a chaotic life, as is life with kids. And now the sounds of Mario Kart drifted in from the living room, Emmie's squeals cutting through the cheery music every now and then, causing Alice and I to share small smiles of acknowledgement.
Oh, to be a child again. Still a little drenched from a post-swimming shower, full of chili, eyes glowing with the reflection of a television screen.
"Well, maybe you should." My wife was scooping leftover chili into a Tupperware with a ladle. Her hair had been tied up like it was every day after dinner, as if she planned to run a marathon rather than do the cleaning up. She wasn't looking at me, dialed into the task at hand.
It's crazy how some parts of my memory could be so good, and others nonexistent.
I reached over from where I stood before the dishwasher, sliding my arm around her waist. She gave me a look, like, what?
"I just don't think it's for me, babe," I muttered, resting my mouth on her shoulder as if I was trying to skip her ears and speak right through her skin. "You know those things make me uncomfortable sometimes."
She let out a half groan, half sigh, setting down the container and the ladle and turning to face me, draping her arms over my shoulders.
"Everything makes you uncomfortable, John."
I smiled, letting my hands fall to her hips. I knew her frustrated act was just that, an act, at least for the most part.
"It's good for you," she continued pointedly, reaching up to tap her pointer finger against my forehead as I swayed her back and forth to a nonexistent tune. "Like medicine. And I know for a fact there are some things you need to work through."
I feigned offense. "You think I'm some kind of nut job?"
"Everyone needs therapy," she snarled, pulling out of my arms, but she didn't resist when I reached out and drew her back in. "Not just nut jobs."
And that was how most of those conversations went. Some got a little more heated, ending with a lightly slammed door (so as not to wake our daughter) and a whisper-shout of "this is why you need therapy!"
I feel I'm making it sound bad, but it wasn't. Even our more serious fights never quite felt like fights. They felt like playing. We were like two cats, biting and tackling and swishing our tails, but never baring our teeth to hiss. I never felt genuine, full-bodied anger towards her, and I knew she felt the same. It sounds sappy, but we were just very in love. I sometimes felt that we had never actually left the honeymoon phase.
I'm also making it sound like that conversation was incredibly common, and it wasn't. It came up maybe once every few months. I knew she was just looking out for me. She knew me better than anyone.
We had met through mutual friends, and we had initially bonded over our terrible childhoods. We both had moms who were out of the picture, and over emotional, over compensating dads, although this manifested in vastly different ways. Alice's mother left her father for a D-list rockstar type, following him on his state wide tour. She would sometimes send Alice letters or postcards from the road, although her dad wouldn't always let her keep them if they seemed to be stained with blood or seemed to have made contact with any strange white powders.
Her dad coped with anger. He never laid a hand on her, but his shouting and the sounds of glass bottles smashing against the walls kept her up almost every night. During the days he'd take her out, buy her things, go mini golfing and bowling and to the movies. Anything to seem more fun than her mother.
My mother passed away on my seventh birthday. She was driving home from work, which was at a law firm half an hour away from our house, when it began to rain. She was texting my dad her ETA when she ran a red light and a semi truck T-boned her, completely obliterating her car.
After that, everything changed. My seventh birthday could've been my twenty-first. At night it was the worst. I remember sitting with my dad as he cried, curled up in a sobbing ball on the filthy living room carpet, whimpering like a kicked puppy. He would scream and wail so loud the walls shook. He would say, over and over as if I wasn't hearing him, sometimes mumbling and sometimes shrieking, "She was cut in half. I'm sorry sir, she's gone. No, there's no chance she survived, she was completely cut in half."
The days were almost worse. During the day, when he could decrease the helpless wails into weeping at the very least, his attention turned to me. He tried to get something out of me, almost silently begging me to break down with him. Every other second it was, "How are you feeling, son? Do you understand what's happening? You poor thing, you must be devastated, your mommy is gone... Don't you want to cry?"
But I couldn't indulge, and I didn't want to. I had to wash the sheets, because he'd pissed them again, and I didn't want him to sleep in it and smell like pee when he took me to school the next day. I had to vacuum the carpet, so the next time he curled up on it and begged God to take him too, when he finally stood up, his cheek wouldn't be caked in crumbs and dust.
I don't know if I ever truly mourned. My mother's death was more like an absence, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors and carved a chunk out of my side, or snipped off a limb. I could still feel her, I could still talk to her, but all I got back was a deep ache and a crushing silence.
I hated how people reacted when I told them my mom was dead, and had been since I was a little boy. I hated the looks on their faces when they asked how she died, and when I told them. How their mouths fell open dumbly and their eyebrows twisted and contorted in sympathetic horror. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know," they said, as if there was vomit rising in their throats, and I wanted to say, "Well, you fucking asked, didn't you?"
Alice never reacted like that. In fact, she never really even asked me what happened. We were on our second date, nursing beers while leaning against the pool table a a dingy speakeasy, when she told me about her own mom. It was the first time in a long time I actually felt like the conversation was open, like I could respond and she would listen and care, but not too much. Not an uncomfortable amount. When I told her about my parents she didn't say anything, and her pretty face didn't contort. She leaned over the corner of the pool table and kissed me on the cheek, took my hand.
The day she found out she was pregnant, we promised each other to be better, to not let our child ever have to grieve alone or feel the very specific hopeless terror that only a parent can cause.
So maybe I should have listened to her. Maybe I should have gone to therapy the first time she brought it up, the first time she told me how it had helped her get through her own terrible memories. But if I'm being honest, I didn't think I had anything to get through. I had left it in the past, I had coped so far in my own somewhat crooked way, I didn't want to dig any of that back up. I didn't want to be put back in that place where I was expected to talk, to cry, to open up. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it.
"I was always the therapist," I would say to her with a crooked grin. "And I like it that way."
Then, the dreams started.
I could tell you I don't know what triggered them, I don't know why it was now. But that wouldn't be the truth. I know exactly why I started to remember.
At first, they were brief. Nightmares that I couldn't quite recall or explain, waking up disoriented and a little sick. The rest of my day would feel strange, like I was surrounded by a thick fog. Eventually, they started to wake me up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and screaming, scaring the shit out of my wife. Once I ran to the bathroom and threw up, barely making it to the toilet. That was when the word "therapy" came up again.
It feels like I've been in a coma for twenty years, and I'm just waking up now.
It's so strange how different the world looks to a child.
I believed in fairies as a kid. Laugh it up if you want. When I turned four, my aunt brought me this book - we've all had one, I think. It was one of those huge hardcover books filled with information about something mythical, with little patches of fabric to simulate a mermaid's scales or a dragon's claw.
Mine was about fairies, and it was so real to me. My mom would sit up with me later than she probably should have, reading to me, placing my hand on the textures to feel. I wanted to know everything about them, I became obsessed, and naturally, my parents played along. They bought me toys, books... every year I had a fae themed birthday cake, and any kid who dared to giggle behind their hands weren't invited to next year's celebration.
When I was old enough to use the internet, supervised of course, I began further research. My mom helped me navigate Wikipedia first, and they had plenty of information to sustain me for a while. My interest turned from wings and magical powers to different types of fae from every corner of the earth, mushroom rings and their alleged distaste for iron. While I still wasn't very good at reading, I would just look at the pictures until she got home from work.
When my mom died, the fairy memorabilia began to amp up. My aunt bought me new books, gave them to me wrapped and tied with ribbons with tear filled eyes, and my dad brought them up whenever he thought I needed comforting and felt strong enough to leave the house. "Wanna go look in the forest for fairies, son?"
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I began to worship the fairies. I was convinced they lived in the forest behind my house, just behind each tree I looked at, hiding from me. I would spend my weekends escaping into the woods with a bucket and a cheap pair of binoculars, positive that this time, this day, I would see one.
At night, when my dad finally passed out in his own puddle of tears and other bodily fluids, I would pray to them. I never believed in God, we weren't a particularly religious family, and besides, I had seen what good He had done for my dad thus far. But I believed in the fairies.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
They never answered.
Until they did.
It was a Friday. I remember now, I'm not sure how I could have forgotten. After school I had sprinted into the shade of the trees before my dad could stop me, gripping the hem of my shirt in my fist, the thin fabric bearing the weight of two handfuls of the shiniest silverware and most colorful buttons I could find in our dusty cabinets.
I had a plan that day. I was going to lure them to me.
My path began in a clearing where I thought a ring of mushrooms may have begun to grow... but even without that, it was just the perfect spot for fairies. I could picture them flitting between the trees, chirping to each other happily, picking wildflowers to weave into flower crowns.
I walked backwards all the way back to my bedroom window, dropping another item every few steps. When I got inside and looked out my window, I could see my trail of shiny things curve through the overgrown grass in our backyard and disappear into the trees.
I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. Tonight, surely, they would come to me. They would show themselves, and they would help me. But after another few late hours of coddling my father, finally convincing him to drink some water and get in bed, I was exhausted. I completely forgot about my plan. When I got to my room I collapsed on my mattress, not even bothering to undress before I closed my eyes.
Then I heard it. The scratching.
I opened my eyes. The moonlight shining through my bedroom window casted strange shadows across my ceiling, shadows of the swaying grass and the creaking trees.
It was strangely silent, other than the sound. Usually there was lots of noise, or at the very least a few crickets, but not tonight. Tonight, I realized, I couldn't even hear the wind.
I sat up slowly, as if in a dream, and looked toward my window. I couldn't see anything out there, nothing glaringly obvious at least, that could be making that noise.
The scratching turned to a tap. Tap tap tap, like a fingernail against a glass. It had a playful air to it, like someone was saying, look over here!
I stood, rubbing my eyes, and stumbled over. The tapping stopped abruptly when I got to the window and peered outside, out to the dark yard, pitch black if not for the moon's glow. The grass didn't sway, the trees didn't creak. I frowned and unlatched the window, sliding it up above my head.
I was right, there was no wind. Not even a gust. Everything was still outside, like it was frozen. I actually started to believe it was frozen, that time had stopped completely somehow, before I saw it.
My trail of silverware and buttons. Sparkling softly in the moonlight.
Disappearing.
It began where the path met the trees, curving off where I couldn't follow it anymore. A fork disappeared right before my eyes, right on the edge. Just vanished, as if someone who was invisible had picked it up and stuffed it in a pocket very quickly.
Then another went, a spoon. Then a particularly large gold button. Whatever was taking them was doing what I had wanted, it was taking my bait, it was coming to me. And it was as if whatever had tapped at my window had wanted me to see this, wanted to show me.
But something felt very, very wrong.
This wasn't how I had pictured it. There was no twinkling, tiny winged thing at my window, winking at me before dashing back into the safety of the trees. There were no secrets being whispered in my ear, no fairy dust or promises of better things.
Something about this wasn't right. It felt like a mimicry, almost a mockery, of what I had imagined. Like something was trying to give me what I wanted, but was rusty at it.
I didn't want this anymore.
My stomach twisted and my hands shook as I pulled the window back down slowly, watching more glittery things disappear from the grass, growing closer and closer. As soon as it was closed I quickly locked it and pulled the blinds shut, turning my back to the window as if something would happen that I didn't want to see.
Nothing happened. The deafening silence continued for a few seconds as my ears strained to hear anything else happening outside. Then the wind picked up, and the sounds of crickets, muffled by my closed window, filled the night air.
I don't remember when I fell asleep that night, I just know I felt unnerved and jumpy for a while. I woke up the next morning feeling guilty. Had the fairies really come last night? Maybe they had come to talk to me, to bring me gifts, favors, and what had I done? I had closed my window on them. I felt ungrateful. Why had I even been scared? Because it was dark outside? What was I, a baby?
When I opened my window and peered outside, I gasped. The trail of silverware and buttons was completely gone, all the way up to the last one, which I had placed on my windowsill. In its place was a shoe. I didn't know what kind of shoe it was, but it looked sort of nice, fancy. I remember smiling out the window as I opened it, as if they were looking, and taking my gift.
How could I forget that night? How could I have forgotten what happened after? I feel crazy, either like I made it all up or like I've made up everything since then, like my life isn't truly my own.
I remember telling my dad. I remember saying, "Dad, the fairies came last night!" and the absent smile he gave me.
Until I showed him their gift. The shoe. Instantly his face went pale and he snatched it from my hands, staring at me as if I was something unholy.
"Where did you get this, Johnny?"
"The fairies, dad, I told you!"
He didn't respond. Just gave me another long, solemn look, before turning away from me, still holding the present I received close to his chest. I was upset, but I knew better than throwing a tantrum. That would be too much emotion anyways, too uncomfortable. Even back then, I didn't know how to handle those things.
I didn't show him their gifts after that. I didn't want to risk having them taken away. I tried not to be scared of the fairies, even though they always came at night, but I didn't go to my window when they came anymore. I read everywhere that fairies didn't particularly like to be seen, even though this one seemed to want to be. It always began with tapping, but otherwise complete silence that almost felt like it was swallowing me... and eventually the tapping would stop, the silence would pass, and I would fall asleep. In the morning there was always another gift for me, sitting on my window sill. A sparkly gold ring, the other matching shoe, a hat... I smiled when I took every one, wanting them to know I was grateful. And I would leave things for them too, little sweets or shiny things like coins or paperclips that I found on the ground at school.
Things seemed to get better with my dad for a while. He kept to himself more, he was quieter. At night he would cry softly in his room, rather than his uproarious wails that I used to have to quell so the neighbors wouldn't come knocking. During the day, he would talk to me, but more casually. He didn't ask me how I was feeling anymore, or tell me to let it out.
I hoped this was the fairies. I felt invincible, like I had a secret superpower that no one knew about. I was friends with fairies.
Then one night, everything changed.
It started with the tapping, as always. That night I was fast asleep, catching up on well earned rest since the nightly therapy sessions had ceased.
The tapping woke me. It was that loud. It was louder than usual... but it seemed like it stopped abruptly as soon as I raised my head to look.
That was different...
That night, I had left my blinds up and my window open by accident. Since that first night, even though I wasn't scared anymore, I had always closed them... but this time, I must have forgotten.
It was silent outside. It seemed darker than usual. I could almost make out something, a shape, way on the other side of the yard, but it was too dark and I was too far away to tell.
That feeling from that first night retuned. A twisting like a hand reaching into my stomach and mixing things around, a heavy feeling in my chest like someone had stolen all of the air from my room, even though the window was open. The silence seemed to crush me, bearing down on me from every angle, making my ribs hurt.
The feeling that something was very wrong.
I don't remember deciding to stand: looking back, I have no idea why I would do that in my state of fight or flight. I don't know if I consciously chose to. I don't remember walking over, but I remember getting there, my hands on the windowsill and my head poking out into the completely still night air.
There was something there. On the edge of the trees. Right where I had seen that first fork disappear into thin air. I squinted, leaning further into the darkness to try and make out what it was.
When I finally did, the outline taking shape as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to shake uncontrollably. I remember that I tried to scream, but no sound would come. I couldn't move, couldn't do anything but stare.
Two legs stood in front of the trees, facing me. Two legs, a blood-soaked pair of slacks, no shoes on the purple, swollen feet. And a jagged, violent rip in the torso where the rest of my mother's body had been severed from its lower half.
It took me a while to realize that the legs weren't standing on their own. They began to move, jerking clumsily toward the window, like something I couldn't see was struggling to hold them up. I finally forced myself out of my trance and fell to my carpet, vomiting.
I don't remember much else about that night yet. My dad came running when I started crying, I'm sure, but he didn't see what I saw. My mom's legs were gone, or hidden. Because they weren't for him.
They were for me.
We moved after that. Before now if you had asked me why we moved so far away so suddenly, I probably would have mumbled something about the grief, and it being too hard to stay where my mother had died. But I remember why now.
It was because the next morning, when I checked my windowsill, there was a hand. My mother's hand. Purple and stiff, and missing her gold wedding ring. Reaching, fingers rested against the glass, like it was trying to get in.
Like it had been tapping.
I don't want to think about what else it might have brought, had we stayed.
That thing, whatever it was, wasn't my mother, and it wasn't a fairy. I had invited something else with all my praying, with all my naive and innocent beliefs, and with all my bottled up emotions. I had invited it, and I had let it in.
And then I had forgotten everything. Maybe I bottled that up, too.
Now I remember. Now I'm having nightmares, and waking up with that sick feeling in my gut, my eyes jumping to our closed bedroom window.
Because a week ago, my daughter woke me up very early in the morning my jumping on our bed. A week ago, she shook me awake, her eager smile stretching all the way across her face. A week ago, she told me, "Dad, the fairies came last night!"
She showed me a doll, a ballerina, with a pink tutu and beautiful long blonde hair.
And now, with all these terrible memories hitting me like cold water to the face, only one keeps me awake at night.
I asked them for help with my father. I asked them for peace. I asked them to bring her back to me.
It has granted two of my wishes, in its own twisted way. My father grew distant from me and my mother was brought back in pieces.
I'm happy now. But I don't have peace. I don't think I'll ever fully have peace, at least not with a child and a wife to try and provide for, and not with all of these memories.
So what has it come back for?
2024.05.20 00:55 Bobert858668 Looking for critique on my Arthurian legend based tv show pilot!
EXT. CAMELOT - CASTLE DAY
(The castle of Camelot stands over grassy hills and crystal clear rolling rivers and seas. Gray clouds cover the sky and hundreds of soldiers and knights can be seen riding toward the castle. Text appears on the screen reading “CAMELOT” and then “CENTURIES AGO”.)
INT. CASTLE - THRONE ROOM - DAY
(MORGANA LE FAY (Centuries-Old), a beautiful middle aged appearing woman with sharp features and long flowing black hair, sits on the throne and holds Excalibur, the Crown of Camelot sits upon her head. Knights and soldiers march in linear motions through the hall. DEWIN (30s), a scruffily charming magician, enters in handcuffs, with guards behind him. Dewin marches up and presents himself to Morgana. Everyone in the room halts.)
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: You know my name, Morgana.
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: Dewinson of Merlin.
MORGANA: You are being tried with treason and conspiracy against the crown. Do you plead guilty to these crimes?
DEWIN: That depends.
MORGANA: On what?
DEWIN: Who you consider the crown to be.
(Dewin slips his handcuffs off and as he does three Blue Jays come flying out of his sleeve and begin to fly around the room.)
MORGANA: Enough foolishness. I find you guilty of the accusations placed upon you.
DEWIN: Then kill me.
MORGANA: Hm?
DEWIN: Let’s skip past the chatter and get my head on a platter. You see what I did there? Chatter platter.
MORGANA: Silence! Death is far too good for you.
DEWIN: Do your worst, no matter what Camelot will fall.
MORGANA: Is that a threat?
DEWIN: A threat would be something I plan on doing to you myself, the fall of Camelot, well that will be purely your doing.
(Morgana gets off the throne and draws a glowing circle around Dewin with Excalibur, as she does so Dewin lets out a small laugh.)
DEWIN: Binding me? My imprisonment shall not halter the winds of time.
MORGANA: I banish you.
DEWIN: What?
MORGANA: From this plane of time and place I banish you.
DEWIN: Not even you have the power to do that. Banishment spells have been hidden away for ages.
MORGANA: Hidden away in scrolls buried in this very castle. Dilflannu o’r awyren hon.
DEWIN: No.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r amser hwn.
DEWIN: No, no, stop.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r meddwl. Rwy’n eich gwahardd!
(Morgana’s eyes turn purple and electricity sparks all around Dewin and seems to be sucking the energy out of him.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(A plain and put together autumnal forest. Text appears over the screen reading “LONDON” and then “EIGHTEEN EIGHTY FIVE”. Electricity sparks and Dewin appears in the forest dazed and confused. He is covered in scars and almost immediately passes out face forward into the ground.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(As night begins to dawn Dewin is still incapacitated. A carriage led by a horse named, Sally, comes through the forest and halts at Dewin. ALDEN SMITH (Early 40s), a plump and posh man with a defining bushy mustache, cautiously hops out of the carriage. Alden looks around for a moment before spotting Dewin. Alden approaches Dewin and checks his pulse through his arm. Alden’s eyes linger on Dewin for a moment before looking up.)
ALDEN: Hello!? Is anybody there!?
(Alden waits for a moment before looking back down at Dewin. Alden sighs and then lifts Dewin up and into the carriage before hopping in himself. Alden pulls on the horse’s reins and it begins to march forward.)
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden drives his carriage down Wicing Drive and parks in front of a townhome, Twenty Six Wicing Drive. Alden gets out of the carriage, carrying Dewin, and walks up the steps. MINERVA SMITH (Early 40s), a stern yet radiant woman, opens the door in shock.)
ALDEN: It’s a long story.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(A stereotypical Victorian living room made primarily of oak and illuminated by two small oil lamps and a burning fireplace. Dewin is still incapacitated and lies on the table covered in bandages, Alden and Minerva hover over him. Bottles of ointment sit next to Dewin.)
MINERVA: What were you doing in the woods?
ALDEN: It’s the fastest cut home.
MINERVA: And you just-
(Minerva is interrupted by Dewin’s sighing as he wakes up.)
DEWIN: Ah! Where am I? Who are you?
MINERVA: My name is Minnie, and this is my husband, Alden.
DEWIN: What’s happening?
ALDEN: I found you all bruised in the middle of the forest. Do you know what happened to you?
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay banished me.
(Alden and Minerva glance at each other.)
MINERVA: Oh lord, I think you're a bit confused.
DEWIN: I am not confused. I am Dewin, son of Merlin. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask if you could take me to a sage or healer?
MINERVA: Of course, Alden can take you tomorrow morning, but for the night you can stay here.
DEWIN: Why, thank you.
ALDEN: Minnie, may I speak to you in the other room?
MINERVA: Of course.
(Alden and Minerva step into the kitchen.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - KITCHEN - NIGHT
ALDEN: We can not keep this man in our home. He is mentally insane.
MINERVA: Which means we must watch over him.
ALDEN: I am looking out for our safety.
MINERVA: And where would we take him?
ALDEN: I don’t know. He is as mad as the Doeth man!
MINERVA: Then that’s where we’ll take him.
ALDEN: Stick to nuts together?
MINERVA: The man has some common sense and he’s very compassionate.
ALDEN: Perfect.
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva Dewin sit in their carriage with Dewin outside of a small house that is slightly separated from the other homes on the street.)
DEWIN: So this is the home of a healer?
ALDEN: According to him. I will go to the door alone, I do not want to scare him.
(Alden gets out of the carriage and starts heading towards the home.)
MINERVA: So you really do believe that you are the son of Merlin.
DEWIN: I know who my father was. Why is this such a puzzle for you and your husband to wrap your heads around?
MINERVA: Why I’ve only heard stories of Camelot, myths of ancient pasts.
DEWIN: So Morgana not only shifted my place but also the time.
(Alden knocks on the home's door and is greeted by ALDRICH DOETH (Hundreds Of Years Old), an older looking man with crystals strapped around his neck.)
ALDRICH: Doctor Smith, have they finally sent someone to take me away to a nuthouse?
ALDEN: On the exact contrary, I’ve found a wounded man who claims to have been sent here by Morgana le Fay.
ALDRICH: That’s what the shift was!
ALDEN: What? You know what it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re willing to take this man.
ALDRICH: Yes, yes, bring him to me.
ALDEN: Minerva, send him up!
(Dewin comes up to the door.)
DEWIN: Hello.
ALDRICH: My goodness, the energy pulsates off of you.
DEWIN (TO ALDEN): This is the healer?
ALDEN: Yes. Now if you two don’t mind I think I will be headed back on my way.
ALDRICH: Are you sure, Doctor? It’s getting rather late, you and your wife are welcome to stay here.
ALDEN: Thank you, but there’s no need.
(Rain starts pouring out of the sky out of nowhere and thunder and lighting begin.)
ALDRICH: What about now, Doctor?
ALDEN: Minnie! We’re staying here tonight!
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(A cluttered mess of books, candles, and potions. Aldrich, Alden, Minerva, and Dewin sit on Aldrich’s circular array of couches and chairs.)
ALDRICH: Before we dive in I suggest you go wash off, Dewin. The washroom is that small one to your left.
DEWIN: Thank you, Aldrich.
(Dewin gets up and goes into the washroom.)
ALDRICH: I know what you two think of me, the neighborhood’s resident crazy.
MINERVA: Not at all, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: Don’t lie, Minerva, our actions all come back to bite us.
ALDEN: So we think you're mental, what of it?
ALDRICH: There are dark forces amongst us, Mister and Misses Smith. I believe that Dewin is here to save us.
ALDEN: I appreciate you letting us stay here, but I think it’s time we leave.
ALDRICH: I will change this storm into an earthquake to keep you here if I must.
ALDEN: Come on, Minnie.
(Alden and Minerva get up and go to leave when the whole room begins to shake.)
ALDEN: What’s happening!?
ALDRICH: I warned you.
(Aldrich makes silencing symbols with his hands and the storm and the shaking stops.)
ALDRICH: Now will you listen to me?
(Alden and Minerva both sit back down.)
ALDEN: What are you?
AlDRICH: A magician, a clairvoyant, a healer, I am all of those things and more.
ALDEN: Why do you want us here so badly?
ALDRICH: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you are the one who found Dewin, Doctor Smith. He needs a guide in this vast new world. Prophecy states that when the second coming of the Camelot war comes, the savior will have a protector.
ALDEN: And why me?
ALDRICH: There are questions that only we can answer ourselves.
(Dewin comes out of the washroom and sits back down.)
ALDRICH: Dewin, please tell me exactly how you arrived here.
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay used an ancient banishing spell on me.
ALDRICH: The fall of Camelot.
(Suddenly a wind sweeps through the room that blows out all the candles.)
MINERVA: Mister Doeth, are you doing this?
ALDRICH: No.
(A match is lit in the center of the room to reveal GWENWYN LIGHTWOOD (Centuries-Old), a green draconic humanoid woman in black robes and a hood.)
GWENWYN: Aldrich.
ALDRICH: Lady Lightwood.
GWENWYN: I’ve tracked a shift in magic to your home.
ALDRICH: It is this boy, he was banished here from Camelot.
(Gwenwyn goes up to Dewin and takes her hood off to reveal her scaly appearance. Alden gasps in disbelief. Gwenwyn runs her finger down Dewin’s cheek.)
GWENWYN (TO ALDRICH): Hm. I presume you wish to let him roam freely?
ALDRICH: With guidance, yes.
GWENWYN: If one thing goes wrong you will be punished.
ALDRICH: I know.
DEWIN (TO GWENWYN): Who are you?
GWENWYN: The last of the dragons. Just as Aldrich is the last descendent of the Family Merlin.
DEWIN (TO ALDRICH): You're a descendant of my father?
ALDRICH: Of his sister, I have many of her poems and spell tombs still intact here.
GWENWYN: Magic is rare these days, endangered, most people don’t even know it exists. So are we under agreement on the boy, Aldrich?
ALDRICH: Yes, but something is still troubling. If you and I both felt Dewin’s presence then-
GWENWYN: Benjamin did too.
DEWIN: Who is Benjamin?
ALDRICH: A descendant of Morgana who wishes to rule the earth under her ideals.
GWENWYN: A very very dangerous man who will certainly kill me if he finds me here.
(Gwenwyn’s match extinguishes and after a moment the candles all reignite but Gwenwyn is gone.)
ALDEN: By Jove!
ALDRICH: So do you all accept this challenge?
DEWIN: What challenge?
ALDRICH: Defeating Benjamin Fayle.
DEWIN: Of course!
ALDEN: Absolutely not.
ALDRICH: Are you that repulsed by compassion?
ALDEN: I can’t risk Minerva of I’s life on what could all be me hallucinating.
ALDRICH: You're risking the world for a craven excuse.
ALDEN: Goodbye.
(Alden gets up.)
ALDEN: Let’s leave, Minnie.
MINERVA: Thank you for your hospitality, Mister Doeth, and good luck.
(Alden leaves, followed by Minerva.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva ride through the street in their carriage.)
MINERVA: We were definitely drugged.
ALDEN: Absolutely.
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva hop out of their carriage.)
ALDEN: I’m going to bring Sally back to the stables.
MINERVA: Goodnight, love you.
ALDEN: I love you most.
(Minerva goes up and enters Twenty Six Wicing Drive as Alden detaches Sally from the carriage and begins to guide her down the cobbled sidewalk with one of his hands on her reins.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - NIGHT
(Alden guides Sally through the forest to a set of stables. Sally suddenly rears up and neighs in terror.)
ALDEN: What is it Sally?
(Sally suddenly breaks off her reins and runs towards the stables. A figure in a dark purple hood and robe sweeps past Alden and their eyes glow purple. Alden screams.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - BEDROOM- DAY
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other asleep in bed. Alden wakes up screaming which awakens Minerva.)
MINERVA: What’s the matter?
ALDEN: Just a night terror.
MINERVA: We did the right thing with Dewin, he’s with someone like him now.
ALDEN: Is that really a good thing? I think I’m going to go to the pub.
MINERVA: This early in the morning?
ALDEN: I need to clear my head after yesterday.
INT. GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - DAY
(A traditional Victorian pub. Dewin sits at the bar and is served by BRYNN CROWING (Early 30s), a charming bartender.)
BRYNN: What can I get you, Mate?
DEWIN: Just a pint of mead, please.
(Brynn goes and pours Dewin a pint of mead that she brings back to him and he begins drinking.)
BRYNN: I like your outfit, it’s very medieval.
DEWIN: It was made by the tailor of Sir Gawain.
(Brynn gives a light chuckle.)
BRYNN: What’s your name?
DEWIN: Dewin, and yours?
BRYNN: Brynn.
(Alden enters and sees Dewin. Alden leaves, but as he does he spots another person in a dark purple robe and hood with glowing purple eyes.)
DEWIN: You're very beautiful.
BRYNN: Why, thank you.
DEWIN: Would you like to go for a stroll?
BRYNN: My shift here doesn’t end till six.
DEWIN: Then I’ll see you then.
BRYNN: I guess you will.
(Dewin finishes his mead and drops two silver coins with dragons etched into them on the bar before swiftly leaving. Brynn picks up the coins and looks at them with confusion and yearning.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - DAY
(Alden knocks on the door and Aldrich opens it.)
ALDRICH: I’ve been expecting you, come in.
(Alden follows Aldrich into the home.)
INT. - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(Alden and Aldrich sit across from each other.)
ALDRICH: Can I offer you some tea?
ALDEN: No thank you, I want to be in the clearest state of mind possible here.
ALDRICH: So what ignited your appearance here?
ALDEN: I’ve been seeing these people.
ALDRICH: Who are “these people”?
ALDEN: They wear these dark robes and their eyes glow purple.
ALDRICH: Faley’s society.
ALDEN: What?
ALDRICH: Benjamin Faley, the evil man I mentioned last night. Is this what caused you to believe?
ALDEN: What are you saying?
ALDRICH: That you believe in magic.
ALDEN: You're mad.
ALDRICH: Exactly, so the fact that you came to me shows that there’s at least one lingering thought in your mind that magic is reality and reality is magic.
(There’s a moment of silence between Alden and Aldrich.)
ALDRICH: Where have you been seeing the people you mentioned?
ALDEN: Everywhere that Dewin has been.
ALDRICH: Oh no, oh no, no, no.
ALDEN: What is it?
ALDRICH: Dewin is going out with a woman tonight.
ALDEN: Already? He’s only been here for a day.
ALDRICH: He's charming but also so foolish. You must watch them, in case Faley strikes or even worse this woman is working for him.
ALDEN: What could I even do to stop that?
ALDRICH: You are destined to protect Dewin, and at this point your logic for denying all of this is purely irrational. You're not hesitating because you think it’s not real, you're hesitating because you know it is. He is meeting her at six outside of the “Griffin’s Tail”.
ALDEN: I’m not going.
ALDRICH: We both know that you will.
ALDEN: Farewell, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: May the spirit of Merlin be with you, Doctor Smith.
(Alden gets up and leaves.)
EXT. LONDON - GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - NIGHT
(Dewin stands outside of the pub when Brynn comes out of the side door and walks towards him.)
BRYNN: I wasn’t expecting you to show.
DEWIN: Why wouldn’t I?
BRYNN: Most men flirt and then leave, half of them are married.
DEWIN: They are not true gentlemen then.
BRYNN: I suppose not.
DEWIN: Shall we begin walking?
BRYNN: Sure.
EXT. LONDON - STREETS - NIGHT
(Dewin and Brynn stroll down the streets of London. Alden follows them from a distance.)
DEWIN: This world is so beautiful.
BRYNN: Compared to all the other worlds you’ve been to?
DEWIN: Well Camelot obviously has a better scenic view.
BRYNN: Camelot?
DEWIN: My home land.
BRYNN: You're full of jokes.
DEWIN: I’m not joking.
BRYNN: What?
(Suddenly someone grabs Brynn into an alleyway and she screams. Dewin quickly turns to see no one beside him and runs after her, followed by Alden.)
EXT. LONDON - ROOFTOP - NIGHT
(The clear skies suddenly turn gray and ominous as Dewin arrives on the roof of a building to see three people with glowing purple eyes in the dark purple robes and hoods with one standing in the center holding Brynn with a dagger to her neck. Alden arrives on the rooftop.)
ALDEN: Bloody hell!
DEWIN: Let go of her!
(The three people take off their hoods and their eyes go to normal shades. The person holding Brynn is revealed to be DABRIA (30s), a menacing looking woman.)
DABRIA: Dim mynd i mewn dim dianc.
(A purple hazy force field appears around the edges of the rooftop.)
DABRIA: So you are the one sent to stop us.
DEWIN: What do you connote?
DABRIA: We are the Citadel of le Fay.
DEWIN: Oh no.
DABRIA: Who are you?
DEWIN: My name is Dewin, I am the son of Merlin, and I demand that you let Brynn go.
DABRIA: Why? Is she your protector?
BRYNN: Dewin, what are they talking about!?
(Dewin starts to move his hands around and a wispy blue energy begins to come out of them.)
DABRIA: Get him!
(The two other people with Dabria rush towards Dewin to attack him, but he uses the energy he created to push them around and drop them both to the ground. Dabria drops Brynn and her dagger and Alden rushes to pick up the dagger and succeeds.)
DABRIA: You are foolish, Dewin.
(Dabria pulls a gun out of her robes and shoots it at Dewin but he turns the bullet into a flower. Dabria shoots more but each time Dewin does the same thing until Dabria is out of bullets. Alden sneaks up behind Dabria and stabs her in the back. Dabria shrieks in pain and then disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Brynn gets up off of the ground.)
BRYNN: What the hell just happened?
DEWIN: Are you okay?
BRYNN: Not mentally. What in the world is going on here? How did you turn bullets into flowers!?
DEWIN: I told you I’m from Camelot.
(Alden drops the dagger.)
ALDEN: Did I just kill that woman?
DEWIN: Most likely not, you didn’t stab deep enough to hit any organs.
BRYNN: What do we do now?
DEWIN: Go home and call it a night.
BRYNN: I can’t forget about this.
DEWIN: I’m not asking you to.
ALDEN: If any of us speak of this people think we’re insane.
DEWIN: Then don’t speak of it.
BRYNN: Will I see you again, Dewin?
DEWIN: Did you enjoy tonight?
BRYNN: I was almost killed.
DEWIN: That doesn’t answer my question.
BRYNN: Meet at the pub on Friday after my shift.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other.)
MINERVA: Do you think the Citadel will return?
ALDEN: Unequivocally.
MINERVA: What have we gotten into?
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(A cavern full of crystals and magical runes. BENJAMIN FALEY (30s or 40s), an attractive but uptight looking man, sits on his throne. Dabria enters and walks to face the throne, she bows and then gets back up.)
BENJAMIN: Did you find him?
DABRIA: Yes, Master Faley.
BENJAMIN: And did you find his protector?
DABRIA: Yes, but it’s not the girl.
BENJAMIN: Then who?
DABRIA: A Doctor Alden Smith.
BENJAMIN: Did you kill the doctor?
DABRIA: He deeply wounded me.
BENJAMIN: Then the battle goes on.
DABRIA: For Morgana.
BENJAMIN: For Morgana.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
(Aldrich and Dewin sit across from each other drinking tea.)
ALDRICH: There are many things in this world, Dewin…
INT. GWENWYN’S CAVE - NIGHT
(Gwenwyn stands in the middle of a circle of candles. She stretches out her hands and forms magic blue charts and graphs with a picture of Dewin.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Forces we can’t explain…
EXT. LONDON - ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
(Brynn wears only her undergarments and takes a few coins from a man.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Secrets we hide…
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(Benjamin sits on his throne.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): And villains we must defeat.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
ALDRICH: You are the key to this all, Dewin, you are the son of Merlin.
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(The castle of Camelot stands over grassy hills and crystal clear rolling rivers and seas. Gray clouds cover the sky and hundreds of soldiers and knights can be seen riding toward the castle. Text appears on the screen reading “CAMELOT” and then “CENTURIES AGO”.)
INT. CASTLE - THRONE ROOM - DAY
(MORGANA LE FAY (Centuries-Old), a beautiful middle aged appearing woman with sharp features and long flowing black hair, sits on the throne and holds Excalibur, the Crown of Camelot sits upon her head. Knights and soldiers march in linear motions through the hall. DEWIN (30s), a scruffily charming magician, enters in handcuffs, with guards behind him. Dewin marches up and presents himself to Morgana. Everyone in the room halts.)
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: You know my name, Morgana.
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: Dewinson of Merlin.
MORGANA: You are being tried with treason and conspiracy against the crown. Do you plead guilty to these crimes?
DEWIN: That depends.
MORGANA: On what?
DEWIN: Who you consider the crown to be.
(Dewin slips his handcuffs off and as he does three Blue Jays come flying out of his sleeve and begin to fly around the room.)
MORGANA: Enough foolishness. I find you guilty of the accusations placed upon you.
DEWIN: Then kill me.
MORGANA: Hm?
DEWIN: Let’s skip past the chatter and get my head on a platter. You see what I did there? Chatter platter.
MORGANA: Silence! Death is far too good for you.
DEWIN: Do your worst, no matter what Camelot will fall.
MORGANA: Is that a threat?
DEWIN: A threat would be something I plan on doing to you myself, the fall of Camelot, well that will be purely your doing.
(Morgana gets off the throne and draws a glowing circle around Dewin with Excalibur, as she does so Dewin lets out a small laugh.)
DEWIN: Binding me? My imprisonment shall not halter the winds of time.
MORGANA: I banish you.
DEWIN: What?
MORGANA: From this plane of time and place I banish you.
DEWIN: Not even you have the power to do that. Banishment spells have been hidden away for ages.
MORGANA: Hidden away in scrolls buried in this very castle. Dilflannu o’r awyren hon.
DEWIN: No.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r amser hwn.
DEWIN: No, no, stop.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r meddwl. Rwy’n eich gwahardd!
(Morgana’s eyes turn purple and electricity sparks all around Dewin and seems to be sucking the energy out of him.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(A plain and put together autumnal forest. Text appears over the screen reading “LONDON” and then “EIGHTEEN EIGHTY FIVE”. Electricity sparks and Dewin appears in the forest dazed and confused. He is covered in scars and almost immediately passes out face forward into the ground.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(As night begins to dawn Dewin is still incapacitated. A carriage led by a horse named, Sally, comes through the forest and halts at Dewin. ALDEN SMITH (Early 40s), a plump and posh man with a defining bushy mustache, cautiously hops out of the carriage. Alden looks around for a moment before spotting Dewin. Alden approaches Dewin and checks his pulse through his arm. Alden’s eyes linger on Dewin for a moment before looking up.)
ALDEN: Hello!? Is anybody there!?
(Alden waits for a moment before looking back down at Dewin. Alden sighs and then lifts Dewin up and into the carriage before hopping in himself. Alden pulls on the horse’s reins and it begins to march forward.)
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden drives his carriage down Wicing Drive and parks in front of a townhome, Twenty Six Wicing Drive. Alden gets out of the carriage, carrying Dewin, and walks up the steps. MINERVA SMITH (Early 40s), a stern yet radiant woman, opens the door in shock.)
ALDEN: It’s a long story.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(A stereotypical Victorian living room made primarily of oak and illuminated by two small oil lamps and a burning fireplace. Dewin is still incapacitated and lies on the table covered in bandages, Alden and Minerva hover over him. Bottles of ointment sit next to Dewin.)
MINERVA: What were you doing in the woods?
ALDEN: It’s the fastest cut home.
MINERVA: And you just-
(Minerva is interrupted by Dewin’s sighing as he wakes up.)
DEWIN: Ah! Where am I? Who are you?
MINERVA: My name is Minnie, and this is my husband, Alden.
DEWIN: What’s happening?
ALDEN: I found you all bruised in the middle of the forest. Do you know what happened to you?
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay banished me.
(Alden and Minerva glance at each other.)
MINERVA: Oh lord, I think you're a bit confused.
DEWIN: I am not confused. I am Dewin, son of Merlin. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask if you could take me to a sage or healer?
MINERVA: Of course, Alden can take you tomorrow morning, but for the night you can stay here.
DEWIN: Why, thank you.
ALDEN: Minnie, may I speak to you in the other room?
MINERVA: Of course.
(Alden and Minerva step into the kitchen.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - KITCHEN - NIGHT
ALDEN: We can not keep this man in our home. He is mentally insane.
MINERVA: Which means we must watch over him.
ALDEN: I am looking out for our safety.
MINERVA: And where would we take him?
ALDEN: I don’t know. He is as mad as the Doeth man!
MINERVA: Then that’s where we’ll take him.
ALDEN: Stick to nuts together?
MINERVA: The man has some common sense and he’s very compassionate.
ALDEN: Perfect.
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva Dewin sit in their carriage with Dewin outside of a small house that is slightly separated from the other homes on the street.)
DEWIN: So this is the home of a healer?
ALDEN: According to him. I will go to the door alone, I do not want to scare him.
(Alden gets out of the carriage and starts heading towards the home.)
MINERVA: So you really do believe that you are the son of Merlin.
DEWIN: I know who my father was. Why is this such a puzzle for you and your husband to wrap your heads around?
MINERVA: Why I’ve only heard stories of Camelot, myths of ancient pasts.
DEWIN: So Morgana not only shifted my place but also the time.
(Alden knocks on the home's door and is greeted by ALDRICH DOETH (Hundreds Of Years Old), an older looking man with crystals strapped around his neck.)
ALDRICH: Doctor Smith, have they finally sent someone to take me away to a nuthouse?
ALDEN: On the exact contrary, I’ve found a wounded man who claims to have been sent here by Morgana le Fay.
ALDRICH: That’s what the shift was!
ALDEN: What? You know what it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re willing to take this man.
ALDRICH: Yes, yes, bring him to me.
ALDEN: Minerva, send him up!
(Dewin comes up to the door.)
DEWIN: Hello.
ALDRICH: My goodness, the energy pulsates off of you.
DEWIN (TO ALDEN): This is the healer?
ALDEN: Yes. Now if you two don’t mind I think I will be headed back on my way.
ALDRICH: Are you sure, Doctor? It’s getting rather late, you and your wife are welcome to stay here.
ALDEN: Thank you, but there’s no need.
(Rain starts pouring out of the sky out of nowhere and thunder and lighting begin.)
ALDRICH: What about now, Doctor?
ALDEN: Minnie! We’re staying here tonight!
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(A cluttered mess of books, candles, and potions. Aldrich, Alden, Minerva, and Dewin sit on Aldrich’s circular array of couches and chairs.)
ALDRICH: Before we dive in I suggest you go wash off, Dewin. The washroom is that small one to your left.
DEWIN: Thank you, Aldrich.
(Dewin gets up and goes into the washroom.)
ALDRICH: I know what you two think of me, the neighborhood’s resident crazy.
MINERVA: Not at all, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: Don’t lie, Minerva, our actions all come back to bite us.
ALDEN: So we think you're mental, what of it?
ALDRICH: There are dark forces amongst us, Mister and Misses Smith. I believe that Dewin is here to save us.
ALDEN: I appreciate you letting us stay here, but I think it’s time we leave.
ALDRICH: I will change this storm into an earthquake to keep you here if I must.
ALDEN: Come on, Minnie.
(Alden and Minerva get up and go to leave when the whole room begins to shake.)
ALDEN: What’s happening!?
ALDRICH: I warned you.
(Aldrich makes silencing symbols with his hands and the storm and the shaking stops.)
ALDRICH: Now will you listen to me?
(Alden and Minerva both sit back down.)
ALDEN: What are you?
AlDRICH: A magician, a clairvoyant, a healer, I am all of those things and more.
ALDEN: Why do you want us here so badly?
ALDRICH: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you are the one who found Dewin, Doctor Smith. He needs a guide in this vast new world. Prophecy states that when the second coming of the Camelot war comes, the savior will have a protector.
ALDEN: And why me?
ALDRICH: There are questions that only we can answer ourselves.
(Dewin comes out of the washroom and sits back down.)
ALDRICH: Dewin, please tell me exactly how you arrived here.
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay used an ancient banishing spell on me.
ALDRICH: The fall of Camelot.
(Suddenly a wind sweeps through the room that blows out all the candles.)
MINERVA: Mister Doeth, are you doing this?
ALDRICH: No.
(A match is lit in the center of the room to reveal GWENWYN LIGHTWOOD (Centuries-Old), a green draconic humanoid woman in black robes and a hood.)
GWENWYN: Aldrich.
ALDRICH: Lady Lightwood.
GWENWYN: I’ve tracked a shift in magic to your home.
ALDRICH: It is this boy, he was banished here from Camelot.
(Gwenwyn goes up to Dewin and takes her hood off to reveal her scaly appearance. Alden gasps in disbelief. Gwenwyn runs her finger down Dewin’s cheek.)
GWENWYN (TO ALDRICH): Hm. I presume you wish to let him roam freely?
ALDRICH: With guidance, yes.
GWENWYN: If one thing goes wrong you will be punished.
ALDRICH: I know.
DEWIN (TO GWENWYN): Who are you?
GWENWYN: The last of the dragons. Just as Aldrich is the last descendent of the Family Merlin.
DEWIN (TO ALDRICH): You're a descendant of my father?
ALDRICH: Of his sister, I have many of her poems and spell tombs still intact here.
GWENWYN: Magic is rare these days, endangered, most people don’t even know it exists. So are we under agreement on the boy, Aldrich?
ALDRICH: Yes, but something is still troubling. If you and I both felt Dewin’s presence then-
GWENWYN: Benjamin did too.
DEWIN: Who is Benjamin?
ALDRICH: A descendant of Morgana who wishes to rule the earth under her ideals.
GWENWYN: A very very dangerous man who will certainly kill me if he finds me here.
(Gwenwyn’s match extinguishes and after a moment the candles all reignite but Gwenwyn is gone.)
ALDEN: By Jove!
ALDRICH: So do you all accept this challenge?
DEWIN: What challenge?
ALDRICH: Defeating Benjamin Fayle.
DEWIN: Of course!
ALDEN: Absolutely not.
ALDRICH: Are you that repulsed by compassion?
ALDEN: I can’t risk Minerva of I’s life on what could all be me hallucinating.
ALDRICH: You're risking the world for a craven excuse.
ALDEN: Goodbye.
(Alden gets up.)
ALDEN: Let’s leave, Minnie.
MINERVA: Thank you for your hospitality, Mister Doeth, and good luck.
(Alden leaves, followed by Minerva.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva ride through the street in their carriage.)
MINERVA: We were definitely drugged.
ALDEN: Absolutely.
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva hop out of their carriage.)
ALDEN: I’m going to bring Sally back to the stables.
MINERVA: Goodnight, love you.
ALDEN: I love you most.
(Minerva goes up and enters Twenty Six Wicing Drive as Alden detaches Sally from the carriage and begins to guide her down the cobbled sidewalk with one of his hands on her reins.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - NIGHT
(Alden guides Sally through the forest to a set of stables. Sally suddenly rears up and neighs in terror.)
ALDEN: What is it Sally?
(Sally suddenly breaks off her reins and runs towards the stables. A figure in a dark purple hood and robe sweeps past Alden and their eyes glow purple. Alden screams.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - BEDROOM- DAY
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other asleep in bed. Alden wakes up screaming which awakens Minerva.)
MINERVA: What’s the matter?
ALDEN: Just a night terror.
MINERVA: We did the right thing with Dewin, he’s with someone like him now.
ALDEN: Is that really a good thing? I think I’m going to go to the pub.
MINERVA: This early in the morning?
ALDEN: I need to clear my head after yesterday.
INT. GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - DAY
(A traditional Victorian pub. Dewin sits at the bar and is served by BRYNN CROWING (Early 30s), a charming bartender.)
BRYNN: What can I get you, Mate?
DEWIN: Just a pint of mead, please.
(Brynn goes and pours Dewin a pint of mead that she brings back to him and he begins drinking.)
BRYNN: I like your outfit, it’s very medieval.
DEWIN: It was made by the tailor of Sir Gawain.
(Brynn gives a light chuckle.)
BRYNN: What’s your name?
DEWIN: Dewin, and yours?
BRYNN: Brynn.
(Alden enters and sees Dewin. Alden leaves, but as he does he spots another person in a dark purple robe and hood with glowing purple eyes.)
DEWIN: You're very beautiful.
BRYNN: Why, thank you.
DEWIN: Would you like to go for a stroll?
BRYNN: My shift here doesn’t end till six.
DEWIN: Then I’ll see you then.
BRYNN: I guess you will.
(Dewin finishes his mead and drops two silver coins with dragons etched into them on the bar before swiftly leaving. Brynn picks up the coins and looks at them with confusion and yearning.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - DAY
(Alden knocks on the door and Aldrich opens it.)
ALDRICH: I’ve been expecting you, come in.
(Alden follows Aldrich into the home.)
INT. - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(Alden and Aldrich sit across from each other.)
ALDRICH: Can I offer you some tea?
ALDEN: No thank you, I want to be in the clearest state of mind possible here.
ALDRICH: So what ignited your appearance here?
ALDEN: I’ve been seeing these people.
ALDRICH: Who are “these people”?
ALDEN: They wear these dark robes and their eyes glow purple.
ALDRICH: Faley’s society.
ALDEN: What?
ALDRICH: Benjamin Faley, the evil man I mentioned last night. Is this what caused you to believe?
ALDEN: What are you saying?
ALDRICH: That you believe in magic.
ALDEN: You're mad.
ALDRICH: Exactly, so the fact that you came to me shows that there’s at least one lingering thought in your mind that magic is reality and reality is magic.
(There’s a moment of silence between Alden and Aldrich.)
ALDRICH: Where have you been seeing the people you mentioned?
ALDEN: Everywhere that Dewin has been.
ALDRICH: Oh no, oh no, no, no.
ALDEN: What is it?
ALDRICH: Dewin is going out with a woman tonight.
ALDEN: Already? He’s only been here for a day.
ALDRICH: He's charming but also so foolish. You must watch them, in case Faley strikes or even worse this woman is working for him.
ALDEN: What could I even do to stop that?
ALDRICH: You are destined to protect Dewin, and at this point your logic for denying all of this is purely irrational. You're not hesitating because you think it’s not real, you're hesitating because you know it is. He is meeting her at six outside of the “Griffin’s Tail”.
ALDEN: I’m not going.
ALDRICH: We both know that you will.
ALDEN: Farewell, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: May the spirit of Merlin be with you, Doctor Smith.
(Alden gets up and leaves.)
EXT. LONDON - GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - NIGHT
(Dewin stands outside of the pub when Brynn comes out of the side door and walks towards him.)
BRYNN: I wasn’t expecting you to show.
DEWIN: Why wouldn’t I?
BRYNN: Most men flirt and then leave, half of them are married.
DEWIN: They are not true gentlemen then.
BRYNN: I suppose not.
DEWIN: Shall we begin walking?
BRYNN: Sure.
EXT. LONDON - STREETS - NIGHT
(Dewin and Brynn stroll down the streets of London. Alden follows them from a distance.)
DEWIN: This world is so beautiful.
BRYNN: Compared to all the other worlds you’ve been to?
DEWIN: Well Camelot obviously has a better scenic view.
BRYNN: Camelot?
DEWIN: My home land.
BRYNN: You're full of jokes.
DEWIN: I’m not joking.
BRYNN: What?
(Suddenly someone grabs Brynn into an alleyway and she screams. Dewin quickly turns to see no one beside him and runs after her, followed by Alden.)
EXT. LONDON - ROOFTOP - NIGHT
(The clear skies suddenly turn gray and ominous as Dewin arrives on the roof of a building to see three people with glowing purple eyes in the dark purple robes and hoods with one standing in the center holding Brynn with a dagger to her neck. Alden arrives on the rooftop.)
ALDEN: Bloody hell!
DEWIN: Let go of her!
(The three people take off their hoods and their eyes go to normal shades. The person holding Brynn is revealed to be DABRIA (30s), a menacing looking woman.)
DABRIA: Dim mynd i mewn dim dianc.
(A purple hazy force field appears around the edges of the rooftop.)
DABRIA: So you are the one sent to stop us.
DEWIN: What do you connote?
DABRIA: We are the Citadel of le Fay.
DEWIN: Oh no.
DABRIA: Who are you?
DEWIN: My name is Dewin, I am the son of Merlin, and I demand that you let Brynn go.
DABRIA: Why? Is she your protector?
BRYNN: Dewin, what are they talking about!?
(Dewin starts to move his hands around and a wispy blue energy begins to come out of them.)
DABRIA: Get him!
(The two other people with Dabria rush towards Dewin to attack him, but he uses the energy he created to push them around and drop them both to the ground. Dabria drops Brynn and her dagger and Alden rushes to pick up the dagger and succeeds.)
DABRIA: You are foolish, Dewin.
(Dabria pulls a gun out of her robes and shoots it at Dewin but he turns the bullet into a flower. Dabria shoots more but each time Dewin does the same thing until Dabria is out of bullets. Alden sneaks up behind Dabria and stabs her in the back. Dabria shrieks in pain and then disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Brynn gets up off of the ground.)
BRYNN: What the hell just happened?
DEWIN: Are you okay?
BRYNN: Not mentally. What in the world is going on here? How did you turn bullets into flowers!?
DEWIN: I told you I’m from Camelot.
(Alden drops the dagger.)
ALDEN: Did I just kill that woman?
DEWIN: Most likely not, you didn’t stab deep enough to hit any organs.
BRYNN: What do we do now?
DEWIN: Go home and call it a night.
BRYNN: I can’t forget about this.
DEWIN: I’m not asking you to.
ALDEN: If any of us speak of this people think we’re insane.
DEWIN: Then don’t speak of it.
BRYNN: Will I see you again, Dewin?
DEWIN: Did you enjoy tonight?
BRYNN: I was almost killed.
DEWIN: That doesn’t answer my question.
BRYNN: Meet at the pub on Friday after my shift.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other.)
MINERVA: Do you think the Citadel will return?
ALDEN: Unequivocally.
MINERVA: What have we gotten into?
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(A cavern full of crystals and magical runes. BENJAMIN FALEY (30s or 40s), an attractive but uptight looking man, sits on his throne. Dabria enters and walks to face the throne, she bows and then gets back up.)
BENJAMIN: Did you find him?
DABRIA: Yes, Master Faley.
BENJAMIN: And did you find his protector?
DABRIA: Yes, but it’s not the girl.
BENJAMIN: Then who?
DABRIA: A Doctor Alden Smith.
BENJAMIN: Did you kill the doctor?
DABRIA: He deeply wounded me.
BENJAMIN: Then the battle goes on.
DABRIA: For Morgana.
BENJAMIN: For Morgana.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
(Aldrich and Dewin sit across from each other drinking tea.)
ALDRICH: There are many things in this world, Dewin…
INT. GWENWYN’S CAVE - NIGHT
(Gwenwyn stands in the middle of a circle of candles. She stretches out her hands and forms magic blue charts and graphs with a picture of Dewin.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Forces we can’t explain…
EXT. LONDON - ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
(Brynn wears only her undergarments and takes a few coins from a man.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Secrets we hide…
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(Benjamin sits on his throne.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): And villains we must defeat.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
ALDRICH: You are the key to this all, Dewin, you are the son of Merlin.